John Abbott is DEAD TO ME

He was still alive?

I thought he died in the1990's.

Yikes!

Rest in Peas.

I remember him from that Faye Dunaway movie….. gosh, what movie would that be….

RIP, Jerry.

John Abbott was the Maureen Bauer of Genoa City.

I really didn't think much of his character other than a generic patriarch on the show, but boy, did Y&R suck without his presence.

May he have many lovely breakfasts with Mamie on the flip side.

I miss Terry Lester. He and JD had real father son chemistry. Terry Lester was the real star on Y&R. Any word from Brendad?

At least the rest of his body finally caught up with his face.

[quote] Any word from Brendad?

I postered at R2. The Bells can’t take that a way from myself!

R5 It really did. The show hasn't been good for any significant period of time since they killed him off. Alan on GH was similar, the show just hasn't been the same since they fired him.

I have to give DAYS props they keep the older ones on for as long as they want to keep working. They even give them more to do than just sit and listen to other people's problems.

I saw and liked him so many times on The Young And The Restless. A good guy!! Rest In Peace Jerry Douglas.......

John Abbott died in 2006.

Has Beth Maitland commented yet?

Not yet R12. Though she retweeted the Y&R tweet

I bett he was thinking thowts of me when he pazzed. He was a MAN after all!!! [heart emoji] [high heel emoji] [lipstick emoji] I look forwurd to see him in Heven 50 years from now when I dye.

He had Roger Stone hair.

Will Y&R recast John Abbott as successfully as they did Katherine Chancellor with Scoche Marin, who has singlehandedly reenergized the show?

Scoche died. She farted and turned to dust.

Scoche Marin is the definitive Katherine Chancellor. Jeanne who?

Has Lynn Marie Latham put out a statement yet?

RIP Gerald Rubenstein

As usual, the fools at SON are making Jerry Douglas’s death about them.

SON was SO nice during the week that Soapsuds left ‘forever’. He’s stinking up that place again unfortunately. Vee doesn’t help either and they have this crazy John guy being a nutjob.

Poor Tracy, what will she wear to the funeral?

They could sew some of the Abbott drapes together to make a dress for Traci.

Was he ever on The Love Boat?

Vee, who is in the biz, ordered LML to kill off John.

When Lathag was in-charge Aunt Jack thought it was curtains for The Abbotts. .. She killed off John; wrote Ashley out; rarely played Traci; recast Billy with Billywood (who was then jettisoned after one 13-week cycle.) ... Poor Jackie was all alone at breakfast table, and it was the non-stop Baldwin-Fisher Hour.

LML was to the Abbotts what Bob Guza was to the Quatermaines.

Wonder if the show will acknowledge Jerry Douglas' passing?

AAAAABBBBBOOOOOOTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!

Jess Walton lost 2 husbands recently and a horse.

R29 He'll certainly get an "In Memoriam'" black screen, maybe with Aunt Jack giving a little accompanying speech.

The character died some 15 years ago, but I suppose they could eventually write some kind special episode (maybe for Christmas?) where the Abbott kids all join up and reminisce about Dear Old Dad and show a boatload of "John Abbott" flashbacks. .. Unfortunately, they wouldn't be able to do much with Jason Thompson's "Billy" on that front. I'm not even sure if "Ghost John" ever visited his Billy. .. They could include a few other vets like Jill, Gloria, Victor, and even erstwhile stepson, Kevin, whom John believed could change for the better. I remember them having a couple of pivotal scenes.

R32 that would be perfect I always associate John Abbot with Christmas.

Last several times they've had Ghost John on, its been John Stoddard playing him. Stoddard is the younger actor who played John Abbott in those 1972 scenes opposite a young Dina.

Oh mother of god. Someone check in on Nellie Branco. He’s a mess! All over the place. Meds are not working.

Since we refer to Lachlan as "GayKyle", I think we should we call Jonathan "GayJohn".

R19 see r4.

Walking on to the Abbott set one day, giant Lynn bumped her head on the threshold and decided they had to go!

[quote] NuJohn Abbott is DEAD TO ME

Fixed.

I'm still alive and kicking and just updated my website!

R39 Brett was the second one, some actor named Sean Garrison originated the role. But just like Erika Slezak as Victoria Lord or Susan Seaforth-Hays as Julie, it doesn't matter that other actors played the roles before them, they made the character into something only they could play.

BRING BACK GILLIAN SPENCER !!

Vee, who’s in the biz, is so busy firing GH people and now this!

Was Gillian ever on the show? I don't remember seeing her.

As sad as this news is, I pretty much assumed he died shortly after his character did.

His storylines always bored me, but I loved his voice (it was so strong and soothing).

Y&R is awful now. So dull. For me, the show ended in the mid-2000s when they killed off Cassie and John Abbott. Not because I loved their characters but they were connected to so many characters that their deaths really affected the show and had a lingering effect.

It's funny...the only post-90s brushes of greatness Y&R has had is when Adam had a main storyline. Michael Muhney and Justin Hartley both shook things up in a good way.

Now I can't even watch it.

Jill and John chewing scenery for lunch.

The return of Dina... she's no Alexis Carrington and at this point, decades ago, they hadn't retconned into the town bike.

^ the only tension in that scene was too many actors and too little floor space.

As beloved as Brendad Ickson is around here, Jess Walton is the only Jill I recognize as legitimate (even if she did portray the character as an unrepentent cunt).

r30, Who's on First?

Oh, I guess nobody now.

[quote] As sad as this news is, I pretty much assumed he died shortly after his character did.

Really? .. Because they played Jerry Douglas as "Ghost John" for years and years and years afterward. .. It got to the point where some viewers began to joke that he was like this pest who might just pop up whenever. .. And viewers would also joke how Ghost John must've just flown in from Miami or somewhere, because many times he was so tan that he was bordering on orange.

No, he died in 1996.

R52 Also, didn't they have him back as a John Abbott lookalike conman?

R14 Yes. They had Jerry back to play a down-in-his-luck Scottish actor named "Alistair Wallingford." As I recall, Aunt Jack hired Alistair to gaslight Gloria. I believe they also wrote some material to test a relationship between Katherine and Alistair.

Fans didn't take to the character at all, and Jerry's Scottish brogue was horrific. It was borderline embarrassing.

^^^ Typo ... the reply should have read R54

When is Joan Van Ark returning as Gloria?

He fucking hated Brenda Dickson. He was a good guy. I worked on Y&R with him. Total opposite of Hans Guddorf (Eric Braden). Jerry thought he could sing, he was terrible.

That young John Abbott was so hot

R58, a soap columnist to me he and Dickson got into it so intensely it almost came to blows.

Has Douggie Davidson admitted to punching out Nellie Bottom yet?

The fights between Brendad and Jerry were even discussed on talk shows - I remember Lynda Hirsch talking about their feud, especially after BDick was fired.

Miss Branco is lying, again. Sigh.

On Brendad's Insta, buried in a post of her own image wishing one and all a Happy Veteran's Day - in itself a bit of an ask - she is told in a comment: Brenda, Jerry Douglas died.

She replied: I know 😢

Her grief was pulpable.

This is just conjecture of course….but with all the chaos, cast feuds, diva behavior and actual physical violence on the set, it looks as if Pa and Ma Bell condoned and encouraged it.

Nellie. has been threatening to sue people who tweet at him. He also pretends to know everything about everything US politics. He should talk to Vee, who is in the biz, and is the expert of all things soaps and politics.

His wife was a regular on Ellen and always funny

He had a really cute son Hunter late in life

Is Hunter out yet? .. When he appeared in that high school reality series, he pinged to high heaven. .. As I recall, when the series started, the story was that he and some girl had just broken up, so throughout the series he appeared as "the lonesome single guy." When prom rolled around, he ended up asking his male BFF - the guy in the black t-shirt in the photo above. Mama Douglas treats this guy like another son. The two boys used one of those Zarian twins to be their "prom stylist."

r60 I remember finding an old tape of John and Brenda. They were doing a scene in the office - once the scene was done, Brenda walked off and Jerry yells "fucking bitch."

RIP Jerry! We know you HATED Brenda and loved Jess.

There’s no other way to put it. Nellie Branco LIES. Don’t ever believe him.

Jerry and Kym invited Brenda to their 85 wedding. Maybe things went sour after that.

Good for Jerry for getting such young pussy! Kym’s young enough to be his daughter.

R58 I didn't think much of his singing either, but fraus seemed to love it when Y&R would have John 'Sinatra' Abbott suddenly take the stage with Gina (Patty Weaver) and sing at her restaurant.

Oh wow, I forgot before there was the Colonnade Room or Genoa City Athletic Club, Gina's was the place one could find Traci Abbott binge eating.

Traci is a god damn fat pig!

The Colonnade Room was there before Gina's. Gina's started life as The Allegro, before Jonas named it Jonas.

Oh, when I was a kid it seemed like in the late 90's people stopped going to Gina's and exclusively went to The Colonnade Room...that's why I thought it was newer.

It existed since at least 1984, when Victor and Nikki married for the first time. Might well have existed before then.

R75 I remember my grandmother liked it.

And The Allegro was actually Pierre's Restaurant from Day 1.

After Pierre kicked the bucket, his widow, Sally McGuire Roulland, inherited it, and she sold it to Leslie Brooks who turned it into The Allegro.

And it was Leslie who renamed it Jonas' Place. She wanted Jonas to come to Genoa City, so she told him he could run his restaurant-club there and manage hers on it's new name.

Jonas never owned it, though. Later when Leslie exited Genoa City. she had her father, Stuart, sell the place on her behalf to Gina Roma, who renamed it Gina's Place.

That damn Pervin Fisher burned the place down when he tried to kill Colleen Carlton.

30 years of history up in smoke.

Dang. I read the name wrong. I thought it was a different Abbott.

Wow, R82!

The Colonnade Room wasn't a permanent set. I remember Soap Opera Digest once did a photo-feature article on it with Y&R's stage manager who took readers through the steps of how they'd set it up when they needed it.

R47 That's the Jill I grew up with too, and she was a great Jill for the 90s, admirably confident and driven. And Jess was no doubt a much better technical actress, she skillfully stayed true to the character whilst creating her own. But now having seen the original, I just think there was something magical that was never recreated by this set of characters again.

[quote] The Colonnade Room wasn't a permanent set.

To me it always looked like they stuck a bunch of columns and tables on a sound stage. I haven't seen it in over a quarter century, so I don't know if it's different now.

Even though she has now become an embarrassing caricature of herself, Brendad Ickson was made for that role and her campy performance brought in the ratings.

Love the slut music with Sven. Wonder whatever happened to that actor. He must be 70 now.

It's all coming back to me! Kevin locked Colleen in the freezer and torched Gina's in an attempt to kill her. It's funny how the gay Baldwin brothers were psychos who terrorized women when first introduced.

I loved how even after they'd worked to "redeem" Kevin, Gina was one character who never forgave him for burning down her restaurant. .. During the later arc, when Clint Radisson was released from jail and manipulated Kevin into robbing banks, Gina was still working as the manager of the GCAC. .. The media was doing a story about Clint and Poor Kevvie, and former victim, Colleen, was expressing how Kevin had changed, but Gina grabbed the microphone and laid into him, bringing up all the garbage that Pervin had done years ago and how he should be locked up in jail, but everyone keeps making excuses for his criminal ass.

They should make Kevin and Mikey a gay.

I miss Jabottom and the guy who played Lauren and Chrissy’s son. I think he was Grant Tinker’s grandson. The shirts off photo shoot was totally homo time in GC.

The one who should be gay is FenMo.

Zach played gay HotSonny in the recent Days spin-off.

They need to get back to bisexual Carmine fucking FenMo and FenMo liking it ... immensely.

It would be more fun watching Kevin and Mikey pretending not to be jealous.

Marco is so hot. He was in New Orleans this week.

R93 I would expect Tinker to reprise his role as nuSonny in the just announced DAYS Christmas movie since it stars Chandler Massey’s Will.

IA with R77

Did Mr. Dapper visit his good “friend” Miss LeBlanc in Nawlins???

I admit I usually find DL's desperate need for every actor to be gay to be a thing deserving great pity and contempt, but I'd be really pleased if La Dapper's hostess gift for Miss LeBlanc required unzipping. But I don't need it desperately.

R96 Probably not. .. Chrissy and his husband are in the middle of a major rehab project of their home there due to damage caused by Hurricane Ida.

The sling needs reinforcement. Humidity, old plaster, and late middle age metabolism.

R96 Plus, it's not really necessary for them to visit in Nawlins. The two artists catch up with one another in L.A. They only live about three miles apart.

R86 Jess was pretty in the 80s, and she still looks wonderful today. But I always found her quite sexless as Jill. She also had a swagger, and it was not a believable type of beauty that really powerful men would constantly be falling to their knees over like Brenda.

Jess has the smokers voice.

R101 I never found Jess' Jill sexless, just dominate. I could see her Jill being a BDSM dom. Even before I knew what that was I figured she was spanking John because he's been a bad boy.

[quote] just dominate

Why can NO ONE spell "dominant" correctly?

R104 Honestly, I thought, "that doesn't look right." but since a squiggly line didn't come up I let it pass, because I didn't feel like looking it up. Sorry.

"But I always found her quite sexless as Jill."

With Jess, the only sparks I ever observed were between Jill and Larry Wharton. They could have done a LOT more with that relationship.

Jess Walton is the only Jill I know, but looking at past clips I think she was the best choice for Jill's role as a tough-as-nails executive. Brenda Dickson seemed fine for floating around in pretty dresses, I guess.

I made Y&R #1!!

I don't mind Jess, but my main issue with her is that she too often barks her lines like she's a junkyard dog.

Also, one personal pet peeve of mine is how Jess began addressing other with the expression "Darlin'" with this very out of place Oklahoma twang. Really!? I don't even know where she got that from. Watching an episode of "Reba" or something?

All I have to do is hear THAT and I'm thinking, so NOT Jill Foster Abbott.

I was shocked to find out Jess was married to a man (until recently widowed). Her version of Jill has always had big dick energy.

Jess loves Virginia Slims.

Jess has the deep smokers voice.

I recall a bizarre, random scene of Jess as Jill smoking the Abbott's living room.

We had that thread recently of Love Boat opening credits and someone posted a clip from the 70s show Cannon of all its opening credits.

Jess is in here at least two times, maybe more. (They liked to reuse the same actors) She's at 12:30ish and again at 17:30ish - looks very different.

Marj Dusay is also in here multiple times, as is Monica Quartermaine herself, Leslie Charleson, looking like a blonde ingenue.

Why would Jerry name his kid Hunter Douglas when the window blinds company has been around for almost a century.

Jess is in that video at R114 again at around the 20 minute mark, just a few seconds after.

Always found Jess a bit overrated.

The only direction she seemed to get was play Jill as horny or angry and in either case yell, a lot.

Saw Jess on an old Kojak the other night. Took me a few minutes to figure out who she was. Ginger Grant was in the same episode.

Jerry Douglas had the nice fake choppers.

R115 Hunter claims he was unknowingly given the same name as the company. I'm not sure if his mother has ever explained her ignorance of this.

R120 Don't forget one of the worst rugs on daytime.

R117 I agree. I wouldn't doubt that after Bell had issues with both BrendaD and Lester, he went out of the way to pimp their replacements (Jess and Aunt Jack) and get them early Daytime Emmy wins to bolster his recasts in these pivotal roles.

r113

Which jill?

^ Jess.

I remember it... she was sitting on the sofa, anxious and smoking (as opposed to distressed and moaning) and somebody came in or was heard to approach... she shoved the smoke in a ginger jar some such and tried to fan the smell. It was the most bizarre scene. Pretty sure I remember Chancellor with a cigarette once or twice.

r126

interesting... I didn't think they showed people smoking in the late 80s anymore

R126 Kay Chancellor smoked frequently. It was part of her problem. She drank and smoked and smelled HORRIBLE - why she was a big turn off to Phillip.

I know... it was so bizarre. Unless I hallucinated it. But Walton is a smoker. I saw her smoking in Toronto for some telethon. Tiny woman. She looks tall but she's quite petite.

R127 I have an episode from the late 80s where Leanna Love is in a motel room doing one of those scenes where characters have a lengthy soliloquy just pacing around talking to themselves. It goes on for about 15 minutes or more, and she's smoking during it.

Also, another character I remember smoking was Phyllis' frenemy Sasha Greene. That was still in the late 90s when Sandra Nelson was playing Phyllis. In fact, it was Sasha's cigarette that lit the place on fire and burned her to a crisp.

Slightly OT but the best soap smoking I ever saw was Sonni/Solita on GL. Michelle Forbes rocked it.

Carly Tenney smoked at least once. And when she did, we knew she wasn't cousin Rosanna's friend at all!

Iris smoked one episode in her penthouse. Simultaneously, she delivered a monologue to "Daddy."

r132

and didn't she throw the cig into the Synder pond? I think Elizabeth Webber smoked when she came to PC... that's how you know they are BAD

Colleen Carlton liked a good doobie.

What was Bell’s problem with Terry Lester? Being gay? Was Lester difficult? For me, Lester was the star back then.

Lester quit because he thought Cricket Blair was eating the show and taking time away from him and other actors on the show.

He later apologized for his public outburst, and as I recall, Lauralee graciously accepted his apology, then went about eating the show.

He wasn't wrong.

Lester was a big ole queen. He wasn’t liked by castmates.

The role of Jack Abbott was specifically written with Lester in mind.

He'd originally been up for the role of NuSnapper after William Gray Espy left.

Lester said he thought he had that role in the bag and was rather aggravated when it didn't happen ... so aggravated that he told his agent he didn't want to audition for any more soap roles.

But Y&R remembered him and four years later they called when they were creating Jack Abbott.

The Jill in the clip at R48 seems like another character. She and John actually seem like they have a good relationship and she seems to care for him rather than being a gold digger. Is that scene not a good representative of Jill at that time or did the character do a 180 when Brenda came back and went full 80's soap bitch - playing it as kind of a cross between Erica Kane and Joan Collins. Brenda could be entertaining to watch and was a key part to the John vs Jill and the Jill vs Kaye feuds, but she always seem to be in full scheming vixen mode. You don't often see a hint of vulnerability or subtext under the bitch mode.

The Jill who first married John wanted the security of wealth, but wasn't a gold digger. She wasn't Krystle from Dynasty, either.

Dickson's return saw the character morph from that into total campfest.

Walton's arrival saw her turned into a hard harpy.

R141 From what I remember, they didn't do a total 180 on the Jill character to "full 80s soap bitch" until after Brenda had been back a couple of years. She was still fairly recognizable as Jill in 83 and 84. I have a lovely scene from 84 where Brock returns and goes to visit Jill at the Abbotts to catch up with her, and it's like they're both back in 1975. .. None of the other Jills could have played this scene with Beau as well as Brenda. .. As I recall, bitch mode didn't really kick-in full stop until '85 during the John-Jill divorce. It seemed obvious that becoming the "Alexis of Daytime" is what Y&R wanted from her and the character. .. And it must have been, because they even told Walton to watch tapes of Brenda and "act like that." Poor Jess didn't 'get it' and asked Lester for advice on what made the character tick. Tetty told her to forget it, implying no one could act like Brenda. He suggested she stop trying to imitate her and make the character her own.

R143, agreed.

I remember that scene, R143... "the more you have the more you stand to lose" and "Oh, well, you know your mother, she's the last of the great survivors."

That was a lovely scene.

R141 Jill there is Deborah Adair who ironically did end up on Dynasty right after leaving and originated the role of Kate on Days. She was my favorite Jill because she looked like the poor girl who made well. She also had good chemistry with Jerry. After two Aaron Spelling Primetime shows, she was one of several sub Jill's. Melinda Fee took over for Brendad for a few episodes and Judith Chapman subbed for Jess for a few days as well. Deborah had good chemistry too with Juliana McCarthy who played mom Liz.

Why do Jerry Douglas's eyebrows look wet and dyed brown at OP?

Barbara Crampton was HORRIBLE as Leanna Love. Even as a child, I could spot the bad acting. No, I'm not expecting Meryl Streep, but she was absolutely horrible.

Jess Walton was wooden but had a camp quality that made it OK, IMO.

I like Adair's Jill. Don't forget the big tits of Bond Gideon.

Jill kinda making trouble. She was more an ambivalent troublemaker. Defensive in the family.

I know some people don't like the JessJill's "darlin" But, since I wasn't around when the character began it connected Jill to her origins, for me, because it sounded like something a manicurist would say, so in my mind it was a link to her past.

Deborah Adair was probably the prettiest Jill. She looked like Christina Ferarri.

R153.

Must admit he had good hairplugs.

R131 I remember that. When "Sonni" was smoking and doing bad girl dancing to Siouxsie and the Banshees we knew it was Solita.

D. Adair was fine as Jill, but I really loved her on Days, and preferred her Kate to Lauren Koslow. If she had stayed on Days Kate would have been the show's somewhat respectable flawed heroine and sometimes bad girl, and not a thoroughly evil calculating woman. Deb Adair's catfights with Sami would have been great too!

Kate was interesting when Adair played her. You got the real sense of desperation of her giving up Billie and Austin. And then bringing Lucas onto the canvas, too.

Koslow isn't terrible, but she's definitely more of a fight to survive kind of bitch.

Thanks for posting that R151. I haven't seen much of Adair's Jill. My favorite Jill is Brenda.

That clip had all of that great Bill Bell dialogue. 😁

r159

it was a great clip but why didn't they recognize their mother? Jack especially would have been old enough to rememeber her

Wasn't there a recent retcon about Dina? I'm not sure about Dina's original backstory and her leaving the family, but I think it was changed.

I think Jack does recognize her. Ashley is the one with the do I know you face?

Ashley seems like she was a bit of a spoiled brat in those old clips. John also seems like he was a bit of an overbearing ass. Was Tracy away at college when the Abbots first showed up? I noticed she is missing from all those old scenes.

I think soaps lost something by getting rid of normal conversations and speeding things up a bit too much, but that lip stick conversation at R150 went on a bit too long. It is always fun to see those old scenes though and see some of the different actors.

I am also under the impression Jack recognized her when Mamie dropped the tray and he looked at her unveiled face. He looked a bit shocked before John revealed who she was. Great scene, but did Dina really think it would be a good idea to reintroduce herself in such a dramatic fashion? Makes for good soap though.

[quote]D. Adair was fine as Jill, but I really loved her on Days, and preferred her Kate to Lauren Koslow. If she had stayed on Days Kate would have been the show's somewhat respectable flawed heroine and sometimes bad girl, and not a thoroughly evil calculating woman. Deb Adair's catfights with Sami would have been great too!

I wonder if that was more of how the show was written then. More real people with shades of gray, less over-the-top behavior. There used to be some clips on YouTube of Marlena and Don covering the loss of their child and how it caused their marriage to slowly crumble. Really well done from what I saw, and Marlena seemed a lot more fleshed out and interesting than what she is now.

Brendad should do a only fans where she diddles herself and shows off her titties. It would get more views than Y&R!!!

there is no time for that type of thing any more... couples go from meeting to marriage within weeks sometimes

r166 And then to ridiculous, idiot-plotted breakups like Nick and Phyllis lately. GTFO, Josh G. I'm surprised the actors can even get through their lines.

[quote]I wonder if that was more of how the show was written then. More real people with shades of gray, less over-the-top behavior. There used to be some clips on YouTube of Marlena and Don covering the loss of their child and how it caused their marriage to slowly crumble. Really well done from what I saw, and Marlena seemed a lot more fleshed out and interesting than what she is now.

Soaps were more grounded in reality back then, it was heightened reality, but reality none the less with just a lot of "extra". Luke and Laura and Gloria Monty sort of changed the game on what soaps could be about. I'm not saying that either way was better or worse, but in the old days you got the chance to really get to know the characters. Those little character moments that soaps used to do so wonderfully are rare these days.

That scene of John and Jill talking about lipstick may seem boring and unimportant by today's standards, but it was building a character moment. It told you who John was and who Jill was trying to be.

[quote] Was Tracy away at college when the Abbots first showed up?

R163 Traci and Ashley didn't really exist when John and Jack Abbott first showed up in 1980. .. The Old John was written out, and we didn't see the character for about a year. .. During that time, Original Jack was solo. .. Then, when Jerry Douglas took over the role of John in 1982, The Abbotts were on track to become a new core family. (The Brooks Family were on the wane, and Bell wasn't up for more recasting.) .. Ashley's arrival coincided with her having just graduated college with a degree in chemistry. .. Traci had been away at boarding school - with John going there to attend her senior year graduation; then she came home too. The Abbott sisters' arrival was right before Jack & Patty's wedding in June of 1982, and Patty asked the two if then to be bridesmaids.

R167 LOL. The entire plots, storylines, arcs, characters, etc., are RIDICULOUS.

Why any of you waste the Days of Your Lives watching this crap is both confounding, and truly, truly despressing.

R170 are they anymore ridiculous than many respectable primetime hits, like "Game of Thrones," "Scandal," "Breaking Bad," or any of the various superhero or supernatural shows. I don't think they are.