18 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

As for contracts, I would imagine everyone signed for 3 years, with the usual options.

Surely not! Gosh, that would be a disaster if 10 or 12 Duprees bolted at the same time, three years into the show. I'd hope an entertainment attorney advised the show not to make such a naive mistake as to sign twenty contract characters to contracts that all expired at the same time 🤣

12 hours ago, GLATWT88 said:

I do think that Vernon needs to be allowed his own space within this soap to be fully utilized. They have given him a lot of background - civil rights activist, politician, lecturer at a prestigious institution.

If Vernon and Anita's little Sweet Baby decides to run for the senate --- and all indications are pointing in that direction --- hopefully, we'll see more & more of Senator Dupree's point of view. Anita has certainly had her day in the sun (and she's done an excellent job with the material!), but I'd like to see more emphasis on Vernon, and not just as Anita's support dawg.

10 hours ago, Taoboi said:

Well I know @Broderick has long had a theory that the plasma ring storyline is a way to move Ted back into Nicole's orbit for a while now. And up until that moment and Lia throwing Nicole under the bus on Monday, I was not completely on board with it. Now though.

Ha! When Ted told Andre that Miss Beautiful had been "the perfect wife", and then he popped-up with flowers for Nicole on KatDay, I thought of y'all on the board immediately. It's happening even QUICKER than I'd visualized.

Seriously, though, we know the show isn't going to isolate a vital character like Nicole in some triangle with two unimportant recurring characters (who are apt to be Plasma Thieves), and they're not going to sideline Ted indefinitely in a low-stakes/no-stakes romance with a gossipy nurse who's even less important on the canvas than Ashley Morgan. That's all just a temporary diversion before the reconciliation.

And I don't believe Keith D. Robinson would've built that elaborate video production of "Forever Bae" around Daphnee Duplaix if the two actors hadn't received a little preview of something that's lying ahead for them.

I don't think Greg Vaughan's Kial was meant to be an unimportant character. But I do think they are treating both of Nicole's suitors pretty poorly at present. If they want Kial to be the male lead for her they have to commit more to a clear trajectory there. I think Kial/Nicole is how it started and then it quickly went off the rails as Nicole began playing him and Carlton against each other. As of now I don't see it for Kial and think they might be circling back to her and Ted. I hope I'm wrong and they switch it up again.

But I definitely don't think they are treating Shanice as less important than Ashley. Not anymore. The fact is Shanice has gotten a ton of POV and airtime since the new year, and Ashley considerably less than ever. Ashley has become more the foil to others, and her romance with Grayson is a subplot as part of the plasma story. If you started watching today you'd have no idea she had some deep friendship bordering on romance with Andre.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Vee

10 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

When June first appeared and seemed to have some sort of mental health issue (which magically disappeared), she told her personal story, that turned out to be Jessica Griffin's story on As The World Turns. In that context, Jessica was treated as a fictional character on a fictional show. The next season, Hayley is mentioning Barbara Ryan Originals as though it were a designer brand that she always dreamed of wearing. Is Oakdale real or fictional? Are the residents of Oakdale real or fictional? What are the writers doing?

For me, that highlights EXACTLY why crossovers (and references to other daytime shows) typically don't work.

I know a LOT of viewers look forward to things like that, but such machinations always strike me as awkward, clumsy, and intrusive.

So young Hayley pressed her face against Fenmore's windows, hoping for a Barbara Ryan original, from a show June had already assured us last year was pure fiction. Y&R was always TERRIBLE about doing stuff like that; on some episodes, they'd act like the Forrester family from "Bold & Beautiful" were real people who existed in their own orbit, and then suddenly Marge Controke would sit down to watch "her favorite daytime show", and we'd hear the B&B theme, as though B&B was fiction and had no bearing on Y&R.

Stuff like that completely takes me OUT of the show and reminds me of how amateurish daytime writing often is.

5 minutes ago, Broderick said:

That's all just a temporary diversion before the reconciliation.

But if Ted and Nicole get back together, then what's the story? Happily married couple does not equal front burner story.

Having both sister's marriages break up in the first year was a miscalculation.

There would have been more mileage had Ted and Nicole stay together trying to rebuild the relationship with Carlton sneakily moving in , Kial in the mix, SPS being less cartoony in trying to lure Ted and even Shanice brought into play.

So spend some time getting invested in Ted/Nicole or the other possibilities.

Instead we had the Ted recast, the cheat reveal with sensible Nicole immediately separating from Ted. And it wasn't like Ted was currently cheating. Nicole should have been more measured in her reaction and then working through her feelings.

1 minute ago, Paul Raven said:

But if Ted and Nicole get back together, then what's the story? Happily married couple does not equal front burner story.

9 minutes ago, Vee said:

I don't think Greg Vaughan's Kial was meant to be an unimportant character.

I tend to agree with @Paul Raven that it's being handled poorly.

And I agree with @Vee that Kial has been done a disservice. He's played by a capable actor, and he fits onto the canvas seamlessly. But with his hit-or-miss appearances so far, and his (bizarre) neurotic move of giving Beautiful a key to his condo after one (?) date with her shows us that there's zero investment in writing for his character. What man DOES that?! lol. I can't decide if this is just Hallmark 101 writing from female writers who don't REMOTELY understand men & how men operate, or if Kial is just an afterthought. I'm afraid it's the latter.

I'm weeks and weeks behind, so I'm not going to read all the comments in the topic (I don't want to spoil myself) but I'm pressing play now... and GOD I HOPE WE GOT A HAYLEY/BILL high moment.

Crossovers and the repeated blurred lines of a sister soap either being canon or in-show fiction from time to time has never bothered me that much. As noted above Y&R has done it before, Eastenders, and several other US soaps I can't name offhand have all played fast and loose like that, all in fun. And of course Dallas and Knots Landing were in continuity until they weren't, until they were again decades later.

I know it's tempting to frame everything a show does as an act of unforgivable incompetence which we would never let slide if we were in charge, but these things have happened across daytime many times on the best of soaps, it's a common practice with those kind of meta soap gags. It's just not that serious IMO, especially when BTG has serious things to course-correct. So I'm not going to ding them for bringing BTG back into the P&G 'universe' which is the right move IMO. I have bigger fish to fry when it comes to this show's issues lol.

Just now, Broderick said:

I can't decide if this is just Hallmark 101 writing from female writers who don't REMOTELY understand men & how men operate, or if Kial is just an afterthought. I'm afraid it's the latter.

I don't think he was intended to be an afterthought. They've given him a fair bit of personal angst and family backstory while Carlton has virtually none. And maybe this is all a poorly-executed feint atm to going back to Kial and Nicole. But I am inclined to agree that it was a mistake to split both Ted and Nicole and Dani and Bill in the first year. The final end for Ted and Nicole should be coming now to set new romance up. Kial and Shanice can still have been introduced into the mix with the same tension for each.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Vee

What really struck me this week was the STRANGE "resolution" to Lynette's Reign of Terror. Whatever happened, I'm glad it happened off-screen so we can wonder about it. Lynette seems FAR too important (and dangerous) to jettison so quickly, with Big Bill, Tomas, Kat, Naomi, and Joey Armstrong all starting to question exactly what's going on with Hayley, Randy/Sammy, and Lynette. I'm hoping Lynette's death/disappearance is just a temporary pause before she returns with a vengeance. (Kinda like Hayley's start/stop/restart poisoning of Bill.) I think they've got a potentially GOOD storyline going here with the three criminals, but if you prematurely ejaculate Lynette off to the great beyond, you've probably shot yourself in the foot.

Just now, Broderick said:

if you prematurely ejaculate Lynette off to the great beyond, you've probably shot yourself in the foot.

Phrasing we'll never forget.

I enjoy Lynette (who I believe is alive and well) and some of Hayley's scheming still, but the overall storyline is baffling to me. Hayley was primed to kill this man six months ago. Let's wrap some of this up. Bring Marquita back in stints from time to time but end this phase.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Vee

OH! Also enjoyed the all-too-brief "reconciliation" between Kat & Eva on "Kat Day", and then Kat's immediate "flirting" with Izaiah, which turned Eva as "green as the tomatoes they fry-up at Orphey Gene's", as Kat described it. There's no question that's where they're heading with Lami suddenly having a contract and Alex Alegria suddenly NOT having a contract. Hopefully they'll work on it slowly and add some stakes to it, but it was mighty nice to see it teased for us the other day.