16 minutes ago, Vee said:

I'll admit it has crossed my mind that CBS will be concerned they have backed the wrong horse. But if it makes money, and gives CBS points with enough key demographics, who knows. I choose to remain optimistic about this show as a business, if not about the country.

YUP!

I think the good news is the show is set in DC, but it's not Capitol. The political aspect is there but it's not the sole premise of the show. They started filming before the election results so presumably they wrote it without overt references to the administration. If the appetite to focus on politics isn't there, there's still plenty of fodder in a diverse soap that emphasizes class differences. If we look at the character bios again, there's several who aren't involved in politics and the ones in politics have other storyline potential. It was always a risk including it, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Edited November 7, 20241 yr by BoldRestless

2 hours ago, Vee said:

I'll admit it has crossed my mind that CBS will be concerned they have backed the wrong horse. But if it makes money, and gives CBS points with enough key demographics, who knows.

At best, I think CBS will offload the show to BET and replace it with "Wake Up America with Megyn & Candace."  Regardless, however, I think its' days on CBS as it is are numbered already.

Edited November 7, 20241 yr by Khan

I’m not with all the doom and gloom talk. As Lauren London once said “don’t focus on the future focus on the present” lol. Right now we have a black lead, black created soap opera being filmed and headed to airwaves next year with real backing. Lets keep celebrating that instead of manifesting negative outcomes.

So already dooming a show that hasnt aired one episode . Stop giving the President-elect power he does not have. 

 

Does BTG feature any blue collar characters?

18 hours ago, te. said:

Getting aside from any concerns over audience rejection, I think this is kind of the issue with characters as politicians on soaps - they can run for what they want and win... and then what?

On Scandal, the focus started at the very top - Olivia was a problem-solver for the President. So there were nowhere for the character to "go". If the son has the ambition to become President one day, then that would inevitably mean climbing the ladder and getting further and further away from his community. For that reason alone it wouldn't surprise me if the politician storyline eventually gets jettisoned - not because of real world politics getting in the way. 

Typically, I would agree with you about the displacement of politcian characters from their home space. I thought Frank Ryan's stories were limited because of the D.C. angle and thought ti was a mistake making Roger Forbes looking towards the White House. The smaller physical distance between the Maryland gated community and D.C. makes me think there is a more workable landscape here, but I may end up being very wrong. 

17 hours ago, Chris B said:

I apologize! You have a right to your opinion as much as anybody. Lord knows we have all had suggestions that people haven't all agreed on. 

No need to apologize. I've read many, many posts by you over the years and know that you aren't the type of person looking to start a fight. I did want to address it because it seemed to becoming a bigger conversation and I thought I might have upset people. 

16 hours ago, te. said:

This is why I suspect that the politics angle will fade within the first year or two - unless they're actually going to invest in sets and a set of characters to represent it, it's just going to fade into the background. But since the show since based on this "community" and high-level politics tend to take you away from your community, the character will either disappear or have him quit for some reason. 

I think the justice angle is pretty embedded into the show with a cop son-in-law, politicians in the family, and multiple lawyer characters. The might jettison stories relating to life in the Capitol per se, but a pretty significant fiber of this series seems to be the connection to how law and order operates. 

If the NAACP remains involved, I don't see it disappearing. If they are bought out, I think that's a larger possibility. 

I think the main reason I don't see the political angle stunting BTG is because I many people are going to think that having a show featuring a predominantly African American cast is an example of CBS "trying to be woke." This isn't a show I thought that white midwestern housefraus were going to be gearing up to watch before the election, and certainly not now. I think trying to water it down is unnecessary because people who will be offended by the potential politics will be outraged that the show features at its core multiple African American women over the age of 40. It seems to be set in the Maryland/D.C. area for a reason. It could be set anywhere, but this is the location. 

 Then again, it might be worth noting that the Vanessa McBride character was originally an African American woman in the casting call articles online. So maybe there is already a bit of backtracking.

On 11/6/2024 at 2:34 PM, Faulkner said:

I wonder who MVJ might be grooming as her Kay Alden/Natalie Minardi Slater. Susan Dansby? MVJ is in her 70s so obviously it’s something she might be thinking about long term in regards to retirement, etc. Developing strong, visionary Black talent to rise in the ranks is crucial, and thankfully she has Dansby, Judy Tate, Jazmen, et al., on staff and not just Carlivati waiting in the wings for his next HW stint.

At 70, Dansby is not much younger than Val Jean. Neither is Judy Tate (69). Of the names I recognize, I suspect Danielle Paige is the youngest script writer with longterm daytime experience (she joined GL as part of their college writing program right?).

32 minutes ago, Sapounopera said:

Does BTG feature any blue collar characters?

One of the Hamilton daughters, Naomi, the lawyer, is married to a cop, Jacob. He seems to come from a blue collar family. His friend, Derrrick, is a firefighter, and there is the nurse.  

I don't think it was stated implicitly, but the Thomas family may also be outside the gated community types. The mother Dana/Leslie is a waitress and the daughter is working as an assistant to Nicole Richardson. 

4 hours ago, John said:

So already dooming a show that hasnt aired one episode . Stop giving the President-elect power he does not have. 

 

I completely agree!!! 

This is the first new soap opera in 25 years and we will not let the devil ruin it.

8 hours ago, detroitpiston said:

I’m not with all the doom and gloom talk. As Lauren London once said “don’t focus on the future focus on the present” lol. Right now we have a black lead, black created soap opera being filmed and headed to airwaves next year with real backing. Lets keep celebrating that instead of manifesting negative outcomes.

Right. I created my own personal fanfic of characters early on because I was so excited about this show and I wanted the very best for it. No way will I allow negativity to creep in after all of that. 😂

8 hours ago, dc11786 said:

Typically, I would agree with you about the displacement of politcian characters from their home space. I thought Frank Ryan's stories were limited because of the D.C. angle and thought ti was a mistake making Roger Forbes looking towards the White House. The smaller physical distance between the Maryland gated community and D.C. makes me think there is a more workable landscape here, but I may end up being very wrong. 

Location is one thing, but I feel like there's a limit to the conflicts that can be played out without representing the life in DC. I mean, it's fairly obvious that we're going to have the Senator father who is likely pushing his son to get as far as he can, while this is putting a stress to his home life since being a politician is time-consuming and everything you do is put under a microscope, so nothing is truly too private. But eventually they're going to have to resolve that conflict in some way before it becomes repetitive. 

But most of all, while I think politics in general is ripe for soap opera material, it's also an insular world in itself. That's why I think there might end up being problems if they're not really going to have a set of characters / physical sets to represent that - and that might end up causing issues with budget as it's hard to incorporate non-politician characters into that set too deeply and it might end up feeling like two-shows-in-one. There's a reason why soaps tend to opt to having their own businesses as you can always play musical chairs with the boardroom - not as easy in with politics. 

I don't know and I might be getting ahead of myself as the show hasn't started yet. But I could see it becoming an issue a year or two down the road as they'll run out of angles to play with it. 

 

As for the whole "they'll push it to BET"... let's see how it debuts first and how it performs on streaming. Ultimately, the audience CBS is trying to target hasn't gone anywhere regardless of election results and I'm sure they did a lot of market research before even contemplating on ordering a new soap. This wasn't done on a whim.

9 hours ago, dc11786 said:

 

One of the Hamilton daughters, Naomi, the lawyer, is married to a cop, Jacob. He seems to come from a blue collar family. His friend, Derrrick, is a firefighter, and there is the nurse.  

I don't think it was stated implicitly, but the Thomas family may also be outside the gated community types. The mother Dana/Leslie is a waitress and the daughter is working as an assistant to Nicole Richardson. 

Thank you . I have always found the blue collar characters more interesting. 

It would be great to meet the the blue-collar Hawthorne family at some point as I'm sure we will. More potential black characters for this show. 

20 hours ago, BoldRestless said:

I think the good news is the show is set in DC, but it's not Capitol.

It's in the "Maryland suburb" of Washington D.C., so it definitely looks like they're not focusing purely on the nation's capitol, which is smart.

21 hours ago, Khan said:

At best, I think CBS will offload the show to BET and replace it with "Wake Up America with Megyn & Candace."  Regardless, however, I think its' days on CBS as it is are numbered already.

That is not going to happen. Those crazy bitches would get CBS sued into the poor house with all the libel suits they'd.

I cannot believe that some of you all have this show off the air before it has started. If anything it will be more successful because this is what a lot of people. Black drama exploded during the idiot's first term and post.