BTG: September 2025 Discussion Thread

[marceline]

Getting caught up. 

I said that Tomas needs to be replaced with a young Kamar de los Reyes but I finally realized that Ashley is meant to be a Reiko Ailesworth type.

[Vee]

We should be so lucky.

[Cheap21]

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Not Forgettable Rebecca!

Edited September 21 by Cheap21

[Broderick]

That is my biggest complaint about BTG, and I don't expect it to change.  

Historically, if a MALE is the headwriter and executive producer, we end up with these larger-than-life male protagonists (such as Victor Newman) who possess an almost toxic masculinity and who make all the ladies on the show wet with desire.

BTG, of course, is run by women.  For their premier, they trotted out Sheila Ducksworth, Julie Hanan Carruthers, and Michele Val Jean --- and everyone in the cast cooed excitedly they were thrilled to be working for such "strong, powerful women". 

This was our first clue that BTG would be going the "Lifetime movie route", with exceptionally strong female characters, surrounded by weak, emasculated men whose only purpose is to cheat on their wonderful female partners and inflict unjustified amounts of pain on their perfect, long-suffering wives.  It's the only way today's female executives know how to structure a movie or a TV show, just as the male writers go overboard with weak women and strong men. 

How often has Anita Dupree reminded Nicole, Dani, Naomi, Chelsea, and Kat that they are "Dupree women, and therefore you are strong"??  At least once a week, probably.  How often has Vernon reminded Martin that he's a Dupree man and therefore strong?  Never.  Not once.  This is a woman's world.  

Wish today's writers were a bit more versatile than the 1950s, but they ain't.  

[katie_9918]

I’ve been feeling this way since about the third week, when I realized we weren’t getting to know the men the same way we were getting to know the women. And it went downhill from there in that regard.

Edited September 22 by katie_9918

[te.]

The biggest issue is that there seems to be a huge disconnect with the actress and the actual character. Both Ashley and Derek comes across as being in somewhere in their 30s, but are written as if they've just gotten out of college and it's their first real relationship. Add the whole propping up of Ashley as a character that reached ridiculous levels at one point... it's a case where I think they should've rewritten the character(s) slightly if they wanted to cast Jen Jacobs and Ben Gavin in the roles. 

[Vee]

If Ashley and Derek absolutely have to continue to exist on canvas I would've recast both long ago. Someone like Josh Kelly could've only made Derek work so far if he wasn't such an idiotic simp on the page, but he could at least add some spice on his own.

I'd sooner just see them cut these two and introduce other people.

[Faulkner]

Just the sheer numbers of the Dupree women vs. men also tell that story. It’s like the Cramer women or the Kane women or GH’s Davis girls, but those families weren’t/aren’t the only game in town. It’s also telling that they made one of two male scions of the family a gay man and the other his adopted son. I want to celebrate that as a Black gay man myself, but they also made Martin a long-suffering, mentally fragile, almost childlike victim and placed him with a supportive, morally upright white husband whom he has deceived. There’s no sense of him as a competent leader who was considering a presidential run. I’m just waiting for the skeletons to fall out of Vernon’s closet. Jacob the Boy Scout is so underwritten and weakly portrayed as to be meaningless. 

Edited September 22 by Faulkner

[Broderick]

Yes, it's often occurred to me that Martin & Smitty seem "exempt" from the Matriarchal Society of Fairmont Crest, by virtue of their household not containing an adult female.  I find those two the most refreshing men on the show, simply because they're not constantly taking marching orders from a domineering lady.

Jacob and Naomi (so far) have been somewhat "exempt" from Matriarchal Rule as they've been presented thus far as Frank Hardy and Nancy Drew from the detective stories --- not much going on with either of them.  Again, they're refreshing for that reason.  She ain't bossing him around every second, lol.    

[wonderwoman1951]

from your lips…

agreed — with the exception of bill hamilton, who’s portrayed with complex, emotional layers. 

[Soaplovers]

That's probably why I like the Joey and Vanessa scenes because you have two strong willed and driven people interacting... keeping one another on their toes.  

I've been saying since almost the beginning that the level of misandry on this show is through the roof, and it's an extreme over-correction from what other soaps have been doing.   

If you look at soaps from the 80s and the first half of the 90s, you had a great balance of strong and interesting male and female characters.   Even on BTG, though the female characters are somewhat better defined... they also seem to lack any layers nor complexity (unless the actress is injecting something into the part).   Characters like Vanessa and Dani tend to be one note characters... but the two actresses have injected layers into both characters that isn't on the page... same with TT with Anita (who is very one note, but TT is such a good actress that she makes Anita more layered).

It's why female characters such as Hayley, Ashley, Naomi, and Chelsea have been hit or miss... because the characters provided to them are pretty paint by numbers and all four actresses are not strong enough to inject layers into them.  For petes sake, Hayley is the worst written of the four characters so the actress probably is wondering how she's supposed to play most of her scenes (especially in regards to the phantom pregnancy and miscarriage).

[Liberty City]

Writers:
Teresa Zimmerman
Jazmen Darnell Brown

Director:
Michael V. Pomarico

[Cheap21]

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LOL..they couldnt get a real drag queen for this?

[dragonflies]

Dani "Smells like discount perfume and questionable life choices"

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Edited September 22 by dragonflies

[alwaysAMC]

What in the fresh hell is this Vegas stuff?  Is that supposed to be a drag impersonator for Anita? Are they really serious about them getting married?  This is silly.