Asp Burger

I didn't comment on the episode in which we actually saw the sitcom pilot being taped, but the reasons not to pick that up are myriad. It looked terrible, like a really bad show from Tony Danza's actual network sitcom heyday of 30-40 years ago. The AJLT writers were no better at writing an old-fashioned "taped before a studio audience" sitcom than they were at writing a "comedy concert."

I think they're hinting at it. No one's brought it up here yet, but in the scene in which they're eating, Che is talking about something, and Miranda's eyes are watering and she's clearly not attending to the conversation, and she finally manages to gasp out that the red curry means business. Che says something like "You have to be prepared when you get something spicy," and Miranda says she needed something to wake her up. AJLT writing isn't known for being furtive and subtle (nor was SATC writing), but I wondered if we were supposed to store that away as a signal of impending doom, even more than the overt incompatibilities we've seen. Che was the spicy thing that "woke Miranda up," and now she'll find a more sustainable long-term love interest. Like some above, I thought this was the best episode of the season so far. It did feel like an SATC with older women. Don't even get me started on that focus-group scene, though. I have a dreadful feeling that MPK and crew decided that what we didn't like last season was that Che was too brash and confident and lacked vulnerability, and the "vulnerability" this season means a Che who is irritable, insecure, and prone to tears.

I agree. I think the nickname "Seemantha" is funny, and I get it (she's more like Samantha than the other new AJLT women and Che are), but Seema's vulnerability and sensitivity are closer to the surface than Samantha's were, for one thing.

I agree that Nya would have been a better partner in that story for Miranda, if MPK and Nixon were dead-set on doing it at all. But I don't think there's a version of reality in which Che would have been anything except in our faces for as long as there's an AJLT, even if the "X, Y and Me" subplot had wrapped up on the same schedule. MPK clearly loves him some Che (and Ramirez) and thinks what he's doing with the character is an important blow for progressivism and the opening of minds. He'd just have given Che a different love interest and put Che in the brunch rotation with Seema et al. We'd still be getting Che scenes to swell each episode to a sluggish 45 minutes. I do know what you mean. In these cases I was prepared, as I'd seen them in the last few years: Williams in the Star Wars movie (looking about like he does here) and Bergen in Let Them All Talk with Meryl Streep and Dianne Wiest (same). Objectively, they look great for the ages they are, but they were both so gorgeous in their sex-symbol heydays, and those images stay fixed in the mind...especially because they're not constantly appearing in new movies and shows anymore, so we are not getting the slow progression we get with someone like Streep. She's really never stopped being in high-visibility projects since she became a star 40-something years ago.

Yes, it really was. It wasn't just Carly and Sonny getting together late in 1999 (the pairing had been teased as far back as summer, when she was the only one who could talk to him during a penthouse-trashing pre-bipolar-diagnosis episode), but that didn't help. They really started dominating the show in 2000. It goes without saying that 2000 looks much better when placed next to 2022-23. I'll be the one to add the darkest possibility: "Or dead." We don't hear as much about writers passing as we do with veteran actors, but we're all on the same timetable. The last time there were as many as ten daytime dramas airing was 20 years ago exactly.

I know we all might have different answers to this, but when I think about the last time it was "great," as opposed to "watchable" or "less bad than at some other points," I get depressed. 1998, very early '99? (Before Lucky "died," before Tyler Christopher peaced out the first time, and before Hannah, Chloe, and Juan debuted in rapid succession with the impact of three very damp firecrackers.)

"Hey, it's that guy!" I saw "Cyrus" (Jeff Kober) on a Lost episode from the final season. He's a mechanic who helps Kate break out of her handcuffs when she escapes from the federal marshal in an off-island scene. There are a few GH faces on that series. Of course, Cynthia Watros was a series regular in season 2 and kept recurring even after her character, uh, exited. Nigel Gibbs plays a funeral director on Lost, and he later played two GH roles (Aunt Stella's ex, Marcus Godfrey, as well as an unrelated judge).

I may be swimming barge-ward for the first time since about 2015. It's not really that the show is worse now than it was when Shelly and Jean were writing, but the irritation-to-fun ratio has been wrong way around for too long. I conclude most episodes thinking I got nothing out of them; I'm just watching because I did it the day before. There's nothing I'm hopeful about or look forward to seeing. Nothing realistic, anyway. Points in support of bailing out: If I hate a character, they'll be on all the time, usually with the writers attempting to ennoble and vindicate them. If I like a character, they'll get written as if the writers are trying to get me to change my mind. There are too many characters on the canvas who serve little purpose other than allowing the actors to continue working, and the pacing of ongoing stories is terrible. There are always more entertaining ways of spending the <40 minutes it takes to watch an episode. Even if I limit myself to television, I can do better, no matter what time of day it is. Waiting around for a regime change is pointless. Anyone who would do a measurably better job would not be writing or producing daytime soaps, because daytime soaps belong to another era. They still have some good actors—some just breaking into the business, others having been in daytime for so long that it's their niche—but I can see good acting in other places. See point #4. Carly's Scarlett O'Hara moment last week, in which she said she started out with nothing and ended up on top, and whatever she's lost she will get back, may have been my last straw. Scarlett O'Hara sort of works as a parallel for Carly, because they both "ended up on top" through a combination of force of will, lack of scruples, and attaching themselves to the right men at the right times, but as unfashionable as some of its specifics are today, Gone with the Wind told that story in a more entertaining way. And a more nuanced way, in that it didn't expect us to love and admire the protagonist without qualification. (Also, Scarlett's business sense was made more believable.)

That's how I see it too. Spencer's knowledge of fighting is spoiled-rich-kid level. And it would be late in the day for me to start caring about implausible outcomes of fights on this show based on the sizes of the participants. I've been watching Maurice Benard beat other men up for years (maybe more in the 1990s and 2000s than now), when some of his female love interests look as though they could take him. Jonathan Jackson's assaults on Tyler Christopher in the early days of Lucky/Nik were good for a laugh too. I don't mind Dex. Anything I have against him is guilt by association, in that anyone who voluntarily has a relationship with Josslyn has one strike against him. Even Cameron's standing took a hit. Evan Hofer isn't as good an actor as NAC, but he's satisfactory for a daytime young-hunk role. I'd put him on about the same level as Josh Swickard, Tajh Bellow, Ryan Paevey, Bryan Craig, etc.

Fitting, considering that the star and executive producer of the show gave her career-best performance as SanDeE*.

I'm reminded again of Succession, which just ended its run. The four adult children all had had a horrible father (and the three youngest had had a mother who was no prize either). They tried to bulldoze, outmaneuver, manipulate, and claw their way to the top as the old man had done—and they were starting from a position of wealth and privilege he had not had—but they just didn't have his touch. So, they got the worst of both worlds: a bad role model who made sure they were ineffectual.

It was nice of The Hollywood Reporter to use an old picture of Ingo looking his best. I imagine that's how most of Jax's fans will prefer to remember the character, since he is likely a part of history now. I can't see them recasting Jax with some other tall, fit, blond Australian actor. They were barely writing for him even before relations with Ingo soured. The actor's status as a '90s fan favorite was probably all that was keeping Jax coming back. In fact, if the real-life death toll of GH actors hadn't had a spike recently, I'd be expecting Carly to get a phone call and break news to Josslyn about an offscreen mountain-climbing accident (or something similar) any day now.

I'd love a Trey update! Trey wasn't the most grateful role (Charlotte's seemingly "perfect" man who then revealed one imperfection after another), but Kyle did a great job with him. I've loved him ever since Blue Velvet. Recently, he was even a bright spot of the dull Lucky Hank with Bob Odenkirk on AMC. Here he is reminiscing about his SATC experience, starting at 13:38. But the whole video is hilarious, especially the Showgirls part.

Indeed. Here's some detail from the Soap Central recap. It's another good example of the music they would pay to license in those days.

I guess Hannah Scott was pretty peripheral in the scheme of things, as a failed Sonny love interest who hung around for a little while after Carly "won" Sonny, but she liked him. They tried to salvage Hannah by putting her in a triangle with Taggert and AJ. I'll never forget AJ's gift to Hannah: a gorilla bumping and grinding to Prince's "Kiss" right in the middle of the police station. (A guy in a gorilla suit, I mean. Or was it AJ himself in the gorilla suit?)

Then it got even better. The example Carly came up with of an unpunished bad deed of Tracy's was framing Alexis for drunk driving. That was so much worse than Carly drugging AJ (who was in recovery at the time), pouring alcohol all over him, and leaving him in a back alley so his family would think he had relapsed. I'm struggling to recall how she "paid" for that.

Not necessarily. No matter how Molly (theoretically) exits, it could open up a storyline for him. He is connected to Jordan, Curtis, Marshall, and Stella, and I have a hard time picturing an ABC show in 2023 writing off one of their few younger characters of color. Giving him little to do, sure, but not writing him off. But the temporary recast becoming permanent seems the most obvious play. Cynthia Watros and her co-star Michelle Rodriguez had highly publicized DUI incidents—within 15 minutes of each other!—while they were on ABC"s Lost in 2006. Fortunately, there were no injuries or attacking of firefighters, just straightforward being pulled over on suspicion. Both women were written out of the show within a few weeks, although the showrunners have always maintained that it was planned anyway and the episodes had already been shot.

Here's my problem with that: it's a dishonest retcon on the show's part. If they really had written Nina as treating Willow badly for years, and she only changed her tune when she found out Willow was her daughter, I'd say fair's fair and Nina deserved the criticism. But all of Willow and Nina's issues were in the past. Nina had apologized and they were more than cordial to each other...until Nina learned she was Nelle's mother and blurted something out to Wiley. And then kept Sonny away from his family for nine months. Carly had her own family relationship that was a "disaster of her own making" when she came to town and began an affair with Tony. It isn't the whole story of Carly's relationship with Bobbie just because it began that way; they had put that behind them within a couple years. Bobbie was too forgiving too quickly for my taste, but then, Carly usually gets rapid-approval forgiveness. And I suspect during the inevitable Bobbie/JZ tribute episode, it won't be brought up at all.

If Willow dies, maybe she can fill the role of the stuffed bird on the wall.

I am surprised and saddened to hear the news, as others have already said. Wendy commented above on the marginalization of the character. I don't think Bobbie/Jackie Z. ever had it as good in the post-Wendy Riche period. To my recollection, the last major Bobbie story was in 2001: her relationship with Roy DiLucca and the triangle with Roy's ex, Melissa, who came to town and worked at the hospital as another nurse. After the early innings, even that wasn't about Bobbie. JFP and Megan McTavish were giving the big push to A Martinez and Jensen Buchanan. Following that, she was mostly in a supporting role. I remember in 2001 she gave an interview and said she expected this to happen eventually. She pointed out that she was in her fifties now, and while there's always going to be romance for your character on a soap, you can't expect it to be front-burner story forever. (Fast-forward to today, and fiftysomethings and even older actors have front-burner romances all over the place. Laura Wright, Cameron Mathison, Maurice Benard, Cynthia Watros, Maura West, Finola Hughes, James Patrick Stuart...Donnell Turner recently joined the club, and Brook Kerr will later this year.)

Even then, isn't the timing (disrupting the wedding to haul in Carly, searching for Drew while he was playing superhero in Greenland) more on the SEC than the person who alerted them? For all these idiots know, the tip was called in six months ago. We even heard some chatter about how slowly the wheels of bureaucracy can turn. The actual tipster, Nina, was genuinely surprised they moved so quickly. Good grief! I'm glad I wasn't watching AMC by this point. I didn't think CamMat's portrayal of "extreme" emotions could get even worse than it had been when Gillian was dying, and then in the aftermath of her death. But the above is like Tommy Wiseau in The Room with better English. I see he was still touching his hair/head all the time. That was as much a trademark as the wide eyes.

There are so many more annoying things on the show (like Olivia disbelieving her husband's repeated denials and posturing as an expert on Edward), but Josslyn listing families for Dex and saying, "The Quartermaines, the Spencers, the Corinthos" bugged me. She's not the only one who's done it; it's a consistent thing on the show. Their name isn't "Corintho." Are they a hive-like mass organism for which no plural is necessary, like the Borg? Don't answer that.

I think Lexi Ainsworth has been keeping her options open and not wanting to commit too firmly to GH. That comment about "beyond the industry" supports the hunch. I think she means beyond the daytime-soap industry, rather than beyond the world of entertainment. I posted about this in some other thread a while back (maybe the "Actors in Other Roles" one?), but I was surprised to see her name in the credits of Nope, the Jordan Peele film of last summer, as part of the stunt ensemble. It seems to be the same person; it's on her IMDb and other lists of her credits as well. If stunt work is something she wants to pursue, that's a pretty good first credit.

Well-done soap physical fights are rare, in my experience. The legendary room-destroying catfight between Vivica A. Fox and Jonelle Allen on Generations was one exception. It was one of the lowest-rated soaps of its day, and still the scene is famous. I'll never forget Jonelle's "Come and get me, bitch!" Not long ago, I looked up on YouTube the slap exchange between Sarah Brown's Carly and Lisa Vultaggio's Hannah from 1999. I'd remembered it as good, and it was one of those days when I needed to see Carly, even a prior Carly, getting whacked in the face. But it was better in my memory than it was in reality. It was obvious they weren't close; it was all sound effects and recoil.