tessaray

The main characters are Vernon and Anita and their adult mid 40s-ish daughters. The grandkids are young adults, late teens - early twenties. I'm kind of at that same stage too. (I miss cartoons, stuffed animals and Legos.) So it doesn't seem weird to me. The other soaps have at least a few kids under 10. GH probably has the most (8?), with another on the way. We don't see them much. Holidays and plot points. I'm sure an unexpected pregnancy will be in the cards for BTG before long. 🙂

It really throws me off when Carly is the least offensive part of an episode. Maybe they should have just let Brennan fade away and have Carly fall for the plumber who studied to be a psychologist (though he evidently missed an important course or two) and then ended up in the family business.

It was awful today. And how convenient was the flashback of Cyrus snipping Dex's hospital band? So they'll find his cache of deranged serial killer souvenirs, drag him off to Archam or whatever and he can replace Ryan or Heather as needed. Ugh. Both JK and BH tried, I guess. I'm so over Dante now (and he was one of the few left that I actually liked). Way to go, breaking the confidences of two of his best friends just to shut Lulu up. If Willow is stupid enough to move in with Drew while she's still married to Michael, she deserves whatever she gets. Was Nelle this dumb?

Tuesday was focused on the cast. Thanks to previous trailers and tons of interviews, it didn't seem like there was as much new. Though Cady McClain's clip was new, to me anyway. She seemed much more likeable than most of her onscreen characters. 20 contract and 20 recurring roles. It's going to take awhile to keep them all straight.

Michael most recently did it to Nelle re: Wiley. Tracy seemed more than willing to do it to Willow in his name. But you're right, like the Thanksgiving pizza, it's time to let this tired trope go. With different actors, it might be fun to watch a rivalry form between Willow and Sasha for Michael's attention. But right now they're all so bland.

There are a series of bts specials for BTG all this week at 1:00 pm (CT) on CBS/Paramount+. JL has a clip on Monday's, where I'm assuming he was dressed in character and looking pretty darn good.

The Monday episode was pretty interesting. I was especially impressed by the sets. They said there are 27 of them and the ones they showed put all 4 current soaps to shame. Oh, the diner set was my favorite. The little jukeboxes on the tables sent me straight back to junior high. They promised lots of 70s R&B but some Motown wouldn't hurt my feelings. 🤞

I think what's going on in the world threatens everyone - liberal, conservative, whatever. Polarization means there's no good way for people to see what they have in common, which works for the oligarchs waiting around to enrich themselves at the public expense. My state went from launching Barack Obama to full-on, crazy MAGA. So I sympathize being surrounded by people who see the world differently than you do.

Unless these people are your bosses or in-laws, they don't matter, do they? Or are you personally conflicted? When I was a kid some people boycotted grapes and some people didn't. (In support of CA farm workers.) We didn't eat grapes. Today I have a medical condition and a restricted diet, so I have to shop accordingly. That means Walmart and Target in my area. It is what it is. I order things from the source online if I can. I will sometimes pay more for local. I am weaning myself off Amazon, though to be fair with current prices and much slower delivery, they're making it easy. But it isn't necessarily political. I've seen what our reliance on these big companies is doing to our communities. Everyone has to decide for themselves. If peer pressure re: boycotts affects your mental health, then don't boycott anything. You don't have to defend yourself here or anywhere else.

If you have decent OTA reception, there is Tablo. Their newest dvr doesn't require a subscription, so it's $99 and done. I believe they are even a Canadian company. (For some people that matters right now.) I've had one for years and it's paid for itself many times over.

They are very pretty together. I had hopes when she saved his life. But then she perked up in her scenes with Drew a while back and seems awake with Sidwell. It never lasts. Not that it matters much. The character lost me over the whole Irene debacle.

Oh, I agree. With all the Constitutional principles the right are attacking, I am most sad about the erosion of the separation of church and state. It kind of enforced that "respect". I can't imagine who in their right (heh) mind would want to be the morality police. But here we are.

I'm sorry if some of the generalizations here made you uncomfortable. No doubt there are many decent "trust fund kids" out there. There used to be a lot of old-fashioned liberals who had trust fund backgrounds and were known for giving back to their communities. But there is a special kind of cruelty attached to a type of rich person who isn't satisfied with just having, they also want to make sure that poorer people have nothing but crumbs. Crumbs that they then want to charge full-price for. Cultural change can be hard. For me, it helps to focus on respect for other's private choices and respect of baseline civil rights.

For some reason I thought Ava got kicked out because she recorded Natalia and inadvertently outed Blaze when she gave it to the The Intruder? In any case, Ava didn't mess with Sonny's meds. She discovered someone else was doing it and tried to use it for her own purposes. Still bad but it's Ava.

I went ahead and created the basic topics. We can edit our posts for a week I think, so if anyone has clever suggestions after that a mod edit will need to be requested.

Discuss what happened today on Beyond the Gates.

Beyond the Gates spoilers, rumors and spoiler-y speculation.

For discussions of the personal and off-topic variety.

Discussion for the Entertainment Tonight 5 day special "Beyond the Gates: Welcome to the Neighborhood" starting Monday, February 17 through Friday, February 21, 2025 at 2pm on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. See the expanded post from the Anticipation topic.

I have a Tablo, which records OTA content. My listings show both the week-long specials and the first few regular episodes. So I'm good. Though I also have Paramount Plus as a backup.

I'd be okay requiring a civics test.

I am deeply suspicious of anyone who wants to be the private parts police. Thankfully, when pressed on who would be enforcing this, especially with children, most people are equally repulsed.

I don't know if I ever watched a whole episode. Was it controversial?

I didn't know either, all I got was that Serena was looking amazing. The choreography was really interesting. The internets are abuzz because bell bottoms. And the weird change to the score bug. I would be against making sports political but really, they've always been political - for more decades than most of us have been alive.

🤷‍♀️ Chris has been in media long enough to know he has to tailor the message for each audience. But I was a little disappointed too. I have the book on hold at the library. I usually wait for the paperback or the price of the Kindle version to come down.