Toomuchsoap

Is anyone familiar with the F. Paul Wilson novel series featuring Repairman Jack? Somehow this drama just reminds me of some of the novels themes, and when I heard that his best friend was named Abe and he owned an antique shop I was further intrigued (Abe in the novels owns a sporting goods shop that's a cover for a weapons shop).

Pretty wild. Wonder what sucky storyline was the straw that broke the camels' backs? The Neverendingpaternity story? The Mariah mess? The Meggie redux? Wonder when the new madness is set to begin? I didn't see any timeline for the changeover.

Off topic of the moment, but has anybody read or heard anything today about what's going on with Sony Entertainment? I saw a couple of tweets just a few minutes ago from a couple of soap opera industry bloggers/fans that referred to an apparent $2billion (I think) third quarter loss, and the worry is for both Sony-produced shows, Y&R and Days. Wouldn't that kind of loss be more related to their movie productions? I saw on HuffPo a couple of weeks ago that the box office for all movies was one of the worst in over ten years or more. The worry expressed was for probable cost-cutting across the board, and how it would relate to the daytime dramas particularly. Sony has been undergoing problems for nearly 7 years on now. Should viewers of these soaps be worried?

^Totally agree with this. And he could have been just about the right age for Leslie if they insisted on going that route. In fact, the character was brought back with a new and really good looking guy about a year or so ago. I think everyone thought at the time that this character was going to be part of the ensemble going forward, but alas, it wasn't to be, for whatever lame reason or another they had at the time. I don't even know why they bothered to create such a touchstone only to not utilize it going forward. And it was a pretty huge miss on the part of the current regime to bring TT in the role of Dr. Barton (and I personally love Tilford and this all but invisible character at this point), but it wouldn't have been rocket science to have the doc that Leslie fell for turn out to be lil' Nate. Leslie is supposed to be only a bit younger than Avery, after all, so it isn't as if Nate would be that much younger (if he were at all, since most doctors in residency are in their early 30s anyway).

Here's a blurb from Branco's SU, and I essentially I heard the same thing on DC last week or the week before (right after JH was cast) whether he was actually in discussion with the show to come back: "..., talent agent Michael Bruno confirmed on Martha Madison and Lilly Melgar’s web talker, SOAP BOX, that the controversial star wasn’t making stuff up and his tweet was indeed true (Why would Muhney piss off a big network and studio publicly by lying about something that never happened; his high-profile manager and agents would never allow that). FYI: Other candidates for the role, according to Bruno, were: SEX AND THE CITY’s Jason Lewis, SMALLVILLE’s Tom Welling, and one of my fave actors, QUEER AS FOLK’s Gale Harold."

This has been written about since the early '80s. I'm not going into the specific personalities, as most everyone who reads these soap boards knows the usual suspects involved. Y&R has been reported to the most toxic BTS place in the daytime industry - for years. It's not surprising, really. This particular soap has been able to attract very talented actors (some of whom moved into the genre after successful movie, primetime and stage careers as they aged), and the soap has maintained it's #1 status for longer than any soap in the history of the business. It's its own pond so to speak, and in it are some big fish in the relatively small pond that daytime drama represents within the Hollywood television industry.

You're right PT. In one of the last radio interviews Jeanne Cooper gave (it was during her book promotion tour a couple of years ago), she and the interviewer started talking about some of her costars, and she told about how a storyline in which Nikki was romantically linked for awhile with Bobby Marsino, which had become popular and buzzy for a period (a short period as I'll explain in a second), and she chuckled to the interviewer and told him that she was watching a scene between MTS and whomever the actor was playing Marsino, and JC said she remarked to someone else onset that "Well, it won't be long before Eric is putting his foot down with Bill about this." Both she and the Interviewer laughed about that and they went on briefly to chat about how EB had (and JC confirmed that she had also made storyline requests - or demands) with producers throughout the run of the show. She was very instrumental in the Marge Cotrook storyline (all except for Katherine marrying Murphy, which she said she never agreed with), as well as others including utilizing her own experience with plastic surgery back in the late '70s or early '80s.

I think you're going to get your wish this week, if the CBS preview clip is any indication. Nick apparently calls Grace, who comes to GC to tell him about what she and Tony found out when they went to retrieve Cassie back in the day.

Actually, if IIRC, Nikki was probably around 20 then. She had already gotten married to Greg Foster by then, and I believe she joined the cult following her split from Greg. I don't think they'd actually gotten divorced at that point. After their separation, I think Nikki joined the cult because she was depressed that her life at that point was sucking pretty hard.

I'm wondering if they will have Villy reconcile, and Adam's reappearance and revelation that Billy shot him during that abduction preceding the crash that supposedly killed him will precipitate another split down the road? This entire storyline continues to plumb new depths in lameness. They've got the entire town and his ex wife in Oz acting like Ben's the BTK serial killer, and what happened would probably not only have won him sympathetic support back in the day, most prosecutors probably would have classified the act as justifiable homicide - and he would have walked. But I guess the ugly word 'patricide' is the reason for everyone's *horrified* reaction. GMAFB. The old man was a classic abusive drunk. He probably routinely knocked his wife and kids around every other day and six times on Sunday, and I'm supposed to be shocked and repulsed because a kid got sick of the abuse and decided to do something about it? Oh! But he didn't, according to Ben. The old drunk caused the fire and Ben supposedly tried to save him. I don't even care whether he tried to save the old shit or not. And I don't even like Ben especially.

I'm completely depressed by the writing. They made a huge miscalculation in taking a (IMO) supporting character and trying to conflate his importance with a backstory that eats the show and reduces the major characters to stooges, and simultaneously renders the character DOA insofar as him being potentially salvageable in any believable way in the future. Tying Kelly and Ben together as siblings only exacerbates their already tenuous appeal (if any) individually. How can Ben Rayburn or whatever his real name is possibly be viable going forward once his past has been exposed publicly? It's one thing to have "murdered" in the past and been criminally prosecuted, convicted and served, but it's another thing to cop a new identity using that of a former classmate and adopt a fraudulent identity in order to scuttle the past and be reborn. (Of course, it's not as if we haven't been treated to that in elephantine-sized doses throughout the past 35+ years Victurd has been glowering all over town). The thing is, once Ben's cover is blown, so is his professional license and any credibility as a medical practitioner. He'll lose his residency, his license and his educational credentials will be rescinded, not to mention that he'll be facing federal prosecution for identity theft by having used a federally-issued SSN. If they were going the "My Brother Was A Murderer" route, perhaps they might better have gone with something along the lines of Dr. Richard Kimball a la The Fugitive (except in Stitch's case, make him an actual murderer of somebody [a pedophile or something other than his wife, of course], and have him dodging the law for years and years. Anyway, I just think they wrote the character into a hole and everyone surrounding him has been pitched into the same hole with him.

Billy Abbott is a schlemiel. And Billy Abbott knows it, and BM understood that the essence of Billy is the fact that he knows he's a fuckup, and he's going to do it again and again. He brought a sense of dejected fatalism to the role that made Billy a frustrating and ultimately tragi-comic character. He's too messed up to invest in but too appealing to cast aside by the people who love him. They keep forgiving him for his messes, but they know he's going to break their hearts over and over again. Anyway, the character is flawed enough that it takes a special actor to make him appealing. BM did that perfectly, DT couldn't, and I don't see any evidence that BJ can do it either unless TPTB are planning on turning Billy away from the classic putz he's been historically. Maybe that's the intent, but if his current actions are any indication, he's still on the same old Billy track. He's shagging the "widow" of the man he pretty much admitted to Jack that he'd shot and killed, all the while professing to the same widow that he's still in love with his soon-to-be-ex wife and would take her back in a heartbeat. He's on yet another a collision course, but seems hell bound determined to keep at it. Unfortunately, BJ just doesn't appeal to me the same way BM would in this situation, because I just feel that he'd be palpably conflicted about the situation, which would make him a little more sympathetic instead of a greedy, manipulative user. 

They were both fun - at first. But the longer they tried to protract that so-called romance, the more he looked like somebody opening a fridge door to something rotting in the back (and I was smelling it too).

It has been widely reported/commented on (after DT was fired) that him being cast was Angelica McDaniel's decision. Supposedly, Tom's sister Heather was all over AMD to get him back on the show, and the decision was made around JFP. I don't know about any backstage issues with other members of the cast with him, but he definitely had a problem with JFP, regardless if he was aware of it, because it's just a fact that a megalomaniac doesn't like somebody intruding on their turf, and for a network exec to make casting decisions over the producer's head doesn't go over well. Regardless of the DT kerfuffle, hiring Jenkins in the role is on JFP's head. After watching him for the last couple of weeks, I think he's a FAIL. He's miscast in the role. He has none of the playfulness and basic emotional immaturity that the character needs. BM brought out a playful, tender and almost maternal protectiveness in Victoria. Victoria made Billy want to be a better man. With BJ in the role, he just comes across as Jack a few years younger and more in his head. He's more Don Draper than Billy Abbott. And am I the only that thought he looked like he would have been more comfortable having sex and sleeping in his tie?