4 hours ago, Maxim said:

A twist doesn’t fix months of mediocre writing. I believe that if you need a twist to save your ass all the time, then something is amiss.

That's how I feel, and I see this happening all over the place. Some things -- like Vernon and Sharon -- aren't even real twists. We ALL know what's really happening. Do these writers think they're fooling us?

If the Vanessa and Joey story gets a twist -- that Vanessa is setting up Joey for a takedown -- I can't see it as satisfying, because we're getting MONTHS of her slobbering all over him with no insight as to how this takedown would take place, with no regard given to her kids or to her community standing and reputation.

-- Nicole is so busy that she can't make it to Martin's for tree decorating? She can't stop there for 20 minutes to see her grandkids?

-- WTH is up with continuity? Eva was dressed in all white at the country club with Ted. Then we see her at Uptown in a COMPLETELY different outfit with a different necklace and earrings. Really???

-- The Febreze product placement was bad today. Nicole is spraying the stuff heavily while Carlton is sitting right there on the picnic blanket?

-- Samantha helping June at Orphey Gene's -- essentially working there -- is stupid.

Not sure this belongs in this thread....

Did any of you see the Maurice Johnson (ex-Ted) interview on You Tube? It's an exercise in toxic masculinity. The guy is flat-out homophobic, and I am GLAD he was fired/recast/whatever.

I would not be surprised if there were reasons he was let go that are tied to his anti-gay and misogynistic attitude.

16 minutes ago, ranger1rg said:

That's how I feel, and I see this happening all over the place. Some things -- like Vernon and Sharon -- aren't even real twists. We ALL know what's really happening. Do these writers think they're fooling us?

If the Vanessa and Joey story gets a twist -- that Vanessa is setting up Joey for a takedown -- I can't see it as satisfying, because we're getting MONTHS of her slobbering all over him with no insight as to how this takedown would take place, with no regard given to her kids or to her community standing and reputation.

-- Nicole is so busy that she can't make it to Martin's for tree decorating? She can't stop there for 20 minutes to see her grandkids?

-- WTH is up with continuity? Eva was dressed in all white at the country club with Ted. Then we see her at Uptown in a COMPLETELY different outfit with a different necklace and earrings. Really???

-- The Febreze product placement was bad today. Nicole is spraying the stuff heavily while Carlton is sitting right there on the picnic blanket?

-- Samantha helping June at Orphey Gene's -- essentially working there -- is stupid.

The way they do the product placement, rough and without much thought... is how they plot the entire show basically. If they just learn how to do it in a funnier... or more elegant way... it's going to be way less absurd.

2 minutes ago, ranger1rg said:

The guy is flat-out homophobic

Never missed him even for a second. Quite honestly... don't ever remember him.

19 minutes ago, ranger1rg said:

Not sure this belongs in this thread....

Did any of you see the Maurice Johnson (ex-Ted) interview on You Tube? It's an exercise in toxic masculinity. The guy is flat-out homophobic, and I am GLAD he was fired/recast/whatever.

I would not be surprised if there were reasons he was let go that are tied to his anti-gay and misogynistic attitude.

It was in the History thread but it might as well be discussed here. Hopefully this will end the lamentations for this dude. He's done.

57 minutes ago, Vee said:

It was in the History thread but it might as well be discussed here. Hopefully this will end the lamentations for this dude. He's done.

He's really trash.

I also have no use for his interviewer, who pushed back at nothing and treated him like God's gift.

With any luck, this will end his career and we'll never see his ignorant ass in anything again.

2 hours ago, ranger1rg said:

Not sure this belongs in this thread....

Did any of you see the Maurice Johnson (ex-Ted) interview on You Tube? It's an exercise in toxic masculinity. The guy is flat-out homophobic, and I am GLAD he was fired/recast/whatever.

I would not be surprised if there were reasons he was let go that are tied to his anti-gay and misogynistic attitude.

Is this why he rarely, if ever, had scenes with his gay son on the show?

Just now, Soapsuds said:

Is this why he rarely, if ever, had scenes with his gay son on the show?

I've read comments where people are asking just that. With a number of queer people in the BTG cast, I can see him being a problem.

Who else has been replaced or fired from this cast in the first year? No one. That tells me that they got rid of him.

-- Ted gifted Shanice an electronic bird feeder? This guy has no game. None.

-- The hard right turn moving Leslie away from Ted and towards Marcel makes no sense to me. This just feels like another dropped storyline in a sea of dropped storylines. She was OBSESSED with Ted and now doesn't even mention him.

-- BTW, is Allison gone? Or will we return to her around May and hear some people say "Oh, these writers are so clever!"

-- Is Greg Vaughan going to recur the same way Cady McClain recurs? Because if that's the case, there was no sense signing him.

-- Still waiting for someone to explain Eva's complete outfit and jewelry change from one scene to the next.

-- It's sure looking like Bob Guza's departure is a big loss.

13 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Broad generalization-probably many exceptions. Bill Bell, Doug Marland etc for starters.

Currently Brad Bell wouldn't fall into either of those categories!

Marland would totally fit into that because his main strengths was complicated and complex plotlines with characters sometimes taking a backseat (His Guiding Light was worlds different in subtle ways to his predecessors the Dobson's (husband and wife team).

Bill Bell on Y & R also was very much into plot with character sometimes taking a backseat... and also he had a trusted co-head writer by the name of Kay Alden that did flesh out the characters (i.e Victor Newman, Jack Abbott, etc).

Brad Bell has no business being a writer... but he's actually in the plot realm and not the character realm.

9 hours ago, Taoboi said:

Or it could lead to lively discussion. ;)

I feel your POV might be echoing how I feel. When you lay out how the show started...yeah, all of those stories had builds and were oh so layered for me. And with him gone, it does seem clear that for all the flaws, MVJ and Guza balanced out each other really well. Good for Guza since it's nice to see he still has it in him after all these years and has redeem himself a little bit in my eyes from years of stuff I didn't like on GH.

Perfect example was the Doug/Vanessa/Joey story that had both of them slowly becoming ensnared in Joey's web with Joey using their addictions (gambling for Doug and Sex for Vanessa) to his advantage. Doug's 'death' with his son coming to investigate were the last episodes of Guza's stint and all of a sudden the son was sent back to school and Vanessa is now becoming pathetic without the cunning glint in her eyes that we saw in the first 150 episodes or so).

The Hayley bombshell was a great swan song for Guza's stint. but the aftereffects have been a bit lackluster with Hayley since episode 151 with her making such careless mistakes (no way would she be eyeing Jacob's brother in plain sight, nor talking to Randy in public, nor being overly insistent on Bill drinking a special tea, etc)... and now this random chick that came out of nowhere.

Edited 10 hours ago10 hr by Soaplovers

1 hour ago, ranger1rg said:

-- Still waiting for someone to explain Eva's complete outfit and jewelry change from one scene to the next.

Great eye. I wasn't following so closely today and completely missed that until I read your comment.

1 hour ago, ranger1rg said:

-- Ted gifted Shanice an electronic bird feeder? This guy has no game. None.

-- The hard right turn moving Leslie away from Ted and towards Marcel makes no sense to me. This just feels like another dropped storyline in a sea of dropped storylines. She was OBSESSED with Ted and now doesn't even mention him.

-- BTW, is Allison gone? Or will we return to her around May and hear some people say "Oh, these writers are so clever!"

-- Is Greg Vaughan going to recur the same way Cady McClain recurs? Because if that's the case, there was no sense signing him.

-- Still waiting for someone to explain Eva's complete outfit and jewelry change from one scene to the next.

-- It's sure looking like Bob Guza's departure is a big loss.

Yeah now that I think about it, he wasn't such a bad headwriter. At least he made the show interesting. I really wish he hadn't left. It definitely feels like whatever made the show compelling pretty much left with him.

I think the show actually improved markedly around the time he was almost out the door, though I don't think that was due to his exit. It started dragging a bit more almost a month ago.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by Vee

Sorry, I forgot to mention this last month. But Thanksgiving came and went with no sign of Anita's female impersonator from Las Vegas -- Thankfully. Remember back in early October, Anita had been talking on the phone with the impersonator and had invited her to Thanksgiving dinner with the Duprees. Dear God in Heaven, I was dreading that visit from Hell. The last thing Beyond the Gates needed within its first year was a silly campy doppelgänger invading the Dupree family, and attempting to take over Anita's life. I'm assuming we are far enough out from Thanksgiving to safely say that did not happen. Fingers crossed.