BTG: February 2025 Discussion Thread

[Maxim]

Someone said that they wanted to see Bill with less clothes... I AGREE...  but I'm not sure if I can take it. Woof... he is making my pulse go high enough already seeing him clothed. 

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Edited March 1 by Maxim

[wonderwoman1951]

agreed. this comment from another board struck me as an illustration. i get that recap is a soap opera necessity, but i found this constancy redundancy annoying. 

“I really wish they would stop praising how great everybody is, I had a family and we barely admitted we liked each other. Half the show is people blowing smoke up each other's butt. Other that Bill and Hayley, everybody else is up for sainthood. The only times anyone said something that seemed real was describing Dani and it is always about her being slightly unhinged.”

[Contessa Donatella]

Well, actually Chelsea & Naomi were critical of Dani in fairly "typical" mother/daughter ways & it had to do with Dani being overbearing & critical of them, which is a totally different side of Dani than the Wild Woman of Fairmont Crest!

[Taoboi]

hehe. I was meaning the show over the movie, but love the gif all the same.

[Taoboi]

I personally feel that like a lot of things this first week, Ashley's intro was intentional. That it only APPEARS out of place. Now if I am wrong, I will happily eat crow. I also feel her first appearance with Derek was meta though...being the tokens black people have been on other soaps. But I also think they were also being used to get in some of the non-black audience as well for that first episode.

 

I agree that outside of showing some backstory to Vanessa, her scene was out of place. But I do like me some Vanessa so far. But perhaps it was to set up the reveal of who her husband is. Because seeing him on Friday (and I think Wednesday if he was one of the men in the car with the keycard?)...then what is going on with her and her husband?

 

For me, the gay story is too early to call. But I see what you and everyone mean. I don't feel anything for them yet, and there was no chemistry to be found. Yet. Mike seem more comfortable in his role than Brandon. And Martin is set to be too important to be with so green an actor. I was at least happy to see Brandon show some of Martin's sass yesterday with Bill, but so far...outside of Martin/Vernon scenes...he's a weak link.

 

And that is just going off of the characters. Story-wise...what will be their story? I think like you and several other people, it will be about Martin and Smitty's differences, too. And I liked someone mentioned a possible parallel between Smitty and Dani...two career people who took a backseat to their men's rise to prominence. And what if Smitty sees how Dani acted at the wedding and has an epiphany? And the phone call at the wedding was not an affair, but a JOB OFFER? What if Martin has an issue with that, but Smitty...now seeing how Dani acted is like 'can't be me?' Like Sharon on Y&R at one point when her and Nick opened Crimson Lights...trying to not wind up like Nikki just hanging around the ranch all day with no life. lol. More organic conflict on top of Martin's dreams to cause a rift. Or perhaps one or the other resents how perfect their life appears to be?

[wonderwoman1951]

with the exception of bill and haley, there was a constant repetition of how wonderful every character was that i found artificial  — just not how people speak naturally. 

[Antoyne]

Agree to disagree.

[Taoboi]

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Now you know I go up for my Girl of the Diva Hair Toss, but love you more. So...agree.  

[te.]

Eh, I feel there's a time to go meta and your introduction week isn't it. I mean, I'm sure Val Jean has more story and intent for Derek / Ashley, but it does feel like that was more a The Powers That Be pushing for the white couple to be featured a bit more in the premiere to show off. 

But we might end up pretending that it was intentionally meta so that's good enough lol 

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[Taoboi]

That crossed my mind, too. Moreso given some of the online comments hating just to hate because the people commenting did not see anything but black main characters under the guise of wondering where white characters were. So MVJ beat them to the punch by having a white couple in the first episode.

 

Also, I feel for non-black people who were curious about BTG, but might feel...unsure? if they would try it out, Ashley/Derek could work as a safe space. If that makes sense. 

 

But again...I think her intro was intentional from a storyline POV, but also has more layers to it than it first appears. IMHO. Not the best part of the week, but we saw her first day at a job she wanted. We watched her interact with boyfriend, friends-some of who aren't her friends maybe?, interact with her boss, heard her fears, and got to hang with her for-sure-real friends at the bar, before seeing her pass out, carried off by a boyfriend who adores her from Episode 1. Given just who she's connected to rn...Andre, Naomi, now Laura...and their connections to the canvas (Andre-close backstory, Dani, Naomi-police bf, daughter of Dani/Bill, Laura-being her nurse AND friends with Leslie/Eva, Nicole's assistant), Ashley is nicely set-up for something and she's only a MINOR character at the moment. So her intro scenes...bland and all...set up a POV to work with as we get into the meat of it...which just writing those connections out, I would suspect is for the Nicole/Ted/Leslie story, but she could easily be all about her/Andre/Derek. Especially if Dani circles back around to Andre. Poor thing would get ate alive if she does but lmao. 

[te.]

Eh. As a non-black person, I feel a good soap is a good soap. And having pointless scenes with Ashley talking about how amazing it is to be a Nice Nurse Who Loves Nursing didn't exactly enhance my experience.

Although, scratch that. It did make me like Dani's trainwreck of a life more and Silkpress Sheila's manipulations (sorry, Martin and Smitty, you get none) - so maybe it did work. Oh Val Jean, you clever you...

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[Paul Raven]

Bill is a big unit- Hayley gotta look up.

From the writing and the actress' performance I am not getting what Bill finds so special about Hayley that he finally ditched his marriage . He told his daughter 'I fell in love' but I'm not feeling it.

Hayley's glitter top and sprayed on pants were giving me Y&R fashion vibes. YUCK

I agree,having characters baldly declare how incredible someone is, that they see everyday was annoying. And too many factoids dropped in eg Jacob's dad is police chief made the dialogue clunky.

Wk 2 awaits.

[Taoboi]

lol. I see that. 

[kalbir]

I think Andre is supposed to be the hotness of BtG.

[Contessa Donatella]

I had this fleeting thought: what if this black writing team couldn't write decently for the "token white characters"?!! And, then, a second thought fleeted across my brain: wouldn't it be a hoot if the "token whites" were boring as sin?!!

I hope they work something out for these "token gays" & I hope that happens sooner rather than later.

And why doesn't Martin want to learn why he's having these bad dreams?

Can we please find me another place to use the word "token"?

What if we replaced the world token with the words "nickel plug"?

 

Edited March 1 by Contessa Donatella