B&B really took a wrong turn since the 2020 pandemic break

hopeyougogirl, 6/28/2022, 2:42AM(681 days ago) @naintednancy

I'm not sure what shifted,... but it feels like a lot of aspects really went downhill when the soap returned in Summer 2020.

I don't live in the US but I've watched B&B since (almost) the 1st episode. The first wedding I watched was Caroline and Thorne's.

The quality of the soap decreased a bit when Brad Bell replaced his dad, some time in the 1990s...

I think the first big shift was around 2003. The introduction of the Marone family was a bad move, then they made some questionable decisions. But I didn't see much difference between 2004 and 2019. Slow decline but the quality of the soap was still tolerable until late 2019.

Something definitely took a wrong turn after the show resumed in July 2020 (after a 3 months long break)

The characters are all too unlikable. Honestly there isn't even one who gives me any positive vibes.
The lead couples are all used up, boring and pathetic. Hope looks like she could be Liam's sister, Steffy looks like Finn's mother. Brooke and this Ridge look like old drinking buddies. But I sure wouldn't prefer Leffy and Tridge, that'd be even worse.

That last Bridge SL has to be the worst they've ever had. I don't even like Brooke but how can she stand there and let Ridge, Taylor, Steffy and Thomas berate her for kissing Deacon when Ridge did the exact same thing with Shauna 2 years ago? He literally spent the night with Shauna, then kissed her (more than once) and even married her because he was drunk, but Brooke isn't even allowed to bring that up.

The music isn't the same anymore. What the hell happened to the background soundtrack? There used to be so many good ones. Now there is hardly any good music including for huge cliffhangers.

Too many repetitive dialogs and empty conversations that serve no purpose. How many times has Brooke lamented about why she drank on NYE? Or Steffy repeated that Brooke kissed Deacon and doesn't love Ridge?

They don't use the history well. No mention of Sheila's other children, no mention of RJ, Will and so many other children.
Bridget returns and not even a scene with Deacon or a mention of Logan.
Taylor returns and zero mention of Jack. Zero mention of her involvment in the Beth SL even if it was her last mistake before she left town. No mention of her shooting Bill even if it was THE reason why she was told to leave town.
Sheila's past 's crimes aren't documented enough.
Still no explanation for why Nicole and Zende divorced, he just returned, pretended she never existed and fell madly in love with the first girl he met.
Where are Flo and Shauna? I don't miss them at all but Bell invested so much to bring a new family... the Fultons. And all of a sudden it's like they never existed. Quinn never mentionned Shauna's name again. Wyatt proposed to Flo and she dropped off the face of the earth without any explanation.
And so on... the list is long

But the main problem is most storylines are too rushed and don't have long-term consequences. The only one they really dragged out for months is Sheila's label switch and it was totally unnecessary.

Vinny switched the results of Steffy's paternity test? Why? 1 month later he got exposed. Neither Finn or Hope dumped their partner. No consequence. If Dr. Campbell dirrectly announced the correct results it would've been exactly the same thing.

Bill/Liam run over Vinny and are arrested? What was the point. Hope didn't even move on from Liam and Bill was single. Nothing happened. The truth came out 2 weeks after the arrest, they were released and it's like Vinny never existed.

Thomas' brain clot / redemption story? That's one of the biggest mistery. They invested so much to redeem Thomas' character and for what? His brain clot appeared after he hit his head, it had nothing to do with his long obsession with Hope and all the bad things he did. They "redeemed" him only to completely ruin him again with this obsession with his parents and his association with Sheila.

Steffy's addiction? It was handled poorly. She took a few forbidden pills and was labelled as an addict. She spent 1 week in rehab and it's like this addiction never happened. That storyline was an insult and completely ridiculed real addicts. Same happened with Brooke's alcoholism. If a viewer had issues with drugs or alcohol, he should never take this soap as a source of inspiration...

Absolutely nothing makes sense since Sheila shot Steffy and Finn. They completely lost me this time. What was the point of Steffy's 5 second amnesia? Totally useless. They should've written a long-term amnesia (like Adam and Eve) or no amnesia at all.
What's the point of killing off Finn if they always knew he'd come back 1 month later? It's such a useless, recycled, poorly written story. They should've brought him back 2 years later, with Steffy married and raising her kids with someone else. Or immedlately informed the audience he was alive and planning his vengeance, but this?

They've made Li so stupid and selfish, I can't have an ounce of sympathy for her.
They have completely RIDICULED paramedics and the police with this SL.
Li found out about the shooting THREE episodes (that means minimum 1 hour) after the paramedics declared him dead. You can't find a pulse so long after the heart stopped. A few minutes yes, but not 1h. Then Li stated he was BRAIN DEAD. IRL you can never heal someone who's brain dead.
And don't even get me started on Baker and his colleagues, they're just the most pathetic policemen in the world. They never even bothered to question the waiter who saw Steffy and Sheila's fight 5 minutes before the shooting. Never bothered to check the cameras of the restaurant. They would have never caught her if Steffy died. And then who do they pick as her cell guard? Mike...The guy who conspired with her for years. It's not even Funny.

I could go on and on but I'll stop here. All the things I brought up were partly true until 2019, but it's really gotten A LOT worse since the pandemic. And I think the ratings reflect that. Even if there's a small improvement since April, B&B still lost over half a million viewers between 2019 and 2020, and most never came back. The pandemic may be one factor, but it doesn't explain everything.

Other feel the same way? When did the show take such a wrong turn IYO?

As long as there's no triangle from he!!, I'm good. I would like to see Bell give Lope and Sinn totally separate s/l's. And the show desperately needs to get back to the fashion shows.

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Shown on screen, Steffy blackmailed Bill. Yet, she told Ivy (and Liam too) that “blackmail is a crime”. Per Steffy’s own words, she IS a criminal cuz she has blackmailed.

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