Jake and Amanda have a big story coming up and we've already seen the show plant the seeds for it. Wait for it to actually take shape this month and next month. They arent a problem. They are what the show should be donig; rotating characters in and out of the frontburner. They were frontburner for most of last year and got put to the back earlier this year, only to be featured heavily in May and June and not much until now. That approach works much better than to have them featured 12 months heavily throughout the year

Cheap I know Jake/Amanda have a big SL coming up (which I have no doubts will be worth watching from what I hear), I'm saying before that. The interest wasn't there. That was a problem. Did you know Rylee week got more viewers than Jake and Amanda's wedding week? that sure as hell is not a good thing.

And of course Dixie should be back. There's just no point in doing anything else with Tad.

I will add that I think Caleb and Erica is a lead balloon. Enough. Just leave her with Jack. Nouri does have excellent chemistry with Bobbie Eakes despite how impossible Krystal is.

ITA. Maybe I could have liked Cooney pitted against Adam but Adam would never put up with the incesant whining that Cooney does. That's why Sonia ran to Adam, IMO. I don't blame her. Waaah this and waaahh that is too much to take from any man. If they would let SL/WW do comedy, that would be great. Loved her cute butt comment to him today and his reaction. That had to be an ad-lib BTW I happen to agree with her

ITA about MN/BE's chemistry, though I do despise KWAK and probably could never root for her in a any pairing.

I think Susan Lucci may opt to go recurring for two reasons. She is miserable not being near her family. She goes to LA and tapes a bunch of shows and then runs back to NY to her family. Her husband is also having some health issues (he is older than her) and if that continues, she will never let him travel like this. She will want him close to his family on the East coast so she may go recurring so she can only work certain times of the year. .

I don't know, unless her children live right around the corner, I can't see how her time with her family would be THAT different from a lot of parents/grandparents across the country. But I do see how annoying it must have been when Liza moved back east and suddenly all of the AMC action was headed out west. It's funny how at first she was always taking about ABC's "great vote of confidence in the show" and now it's "we all went kicking and screaming." If she does go recurring, I think it'll be on paper only. I'm not so sure that she or ABC would want the world to know that AMC's (daytime's!) biggest star went recurring, that's a real downer from a longtime fan/PR standpoint. We'd sooner accept that she was infirm and "making less appearances" than hear that she contractually had one foot off the boat.

But I do agree that with her and her husband's ages, grandchildren and all, these were the twilight years they were looking forward to spending with a lighter load, not hopping 5 hour flights every couple of weeks.

It's funny how at first she was always taking about ABC's "great vote of confidence in the show" and now it's "we all went kicking and screaming." I