Spoiler!!! Huge Season 2 Spoiler!!! Read At Own Risk!!!

[Rove]

what happened is that the decision to recast Cristal happened back in January when the focus groups reacted badly to her and that was when the executives decided that Nathalie Kelley had to go.

But were the focus groups reacting badly to Nathalie Kelley or the character of Cristal? I think its the later. Maybe, just maybe the writers/producers have no one else to blame here but themselves for thrusting such an ill conceived character on the viewers.

This reminds me what occured in TNT Dallas when we the viewer had to swallow a large dose of bad writing when the Ramos family were shoved down our throats. As Alexis so rightfully points out;

I don't understand at all why any time a network creates a new soap they feel they have to do the ludicrous and the absurd as if it cant be a soap unless it goes from 0 to unbelievable camp silliness in 1 season. Do they just panic and think, "Quick, what will they never expect, lets do that!!" that kind of illogical surprise plotting is what killed the genre in the 1980s why do they think it's going to fix their shows now? It always happens. From the '90s on all soaps have had this pointless tinkering with the format and meddling with the premise.

It would appear the networks attempts at the "Soap" genre is plot driven nonsense and character development later....if it manages to get past the cancellation hurdle.

 

[Zable]

...or was a close friend that allowed her to assume her identity because "real" Cristal needed to stay off the grid....haha

Not improbable. Especially since cwDynasty also received inspiration from Falcon Crest. In this instance, I'm now thinking of the Kit Marlowe-Skylar Kimball storyline. But I can't get my head around why Sam would be out in the cold: even if he leaves Steven, the Carringtons probably still consider him family -- unless he's doing things to hurt them. I can see tension between him and Alexis though. How far will he be willing to take things between them?

Maybe Sam can turn out hating "new" Cristal

That would be immature of him. I'm really hoping for more man and less child.

One thing we can count on for season 2 is...

Re-looking the pix RichardC posted, the thought occurs that we won't be seeing Beau again. Perhaps that's why we keep seeing 'Christabel' with the cast. Aw, shucks. Is Beau a casualty of the fire?
I'd been secretly hoping for humour from a doggie romance, which included Beau being torn between helping Christable on some of her escapades and disapproving of them, especially since some were directed at family members he liked/loved but she disliked.

 

[Edie70]

I do hope that this is still the same show when it premieres in October because I've got this weird feeling that they want to change as many things as possible and that's quite scary.

 

[Alexis]

She's not *that* much younger, the new actress. 31, only 2 years younger than Nathalie Kelley.

But... Why bother?

 

[Ked]

But... Why bother?

You know why, because focus groups reacted negatively to Kelley. And we all know how much showrunners *love* to rely on focus groups. Sigh...

(Besides, for all we know, the fact that the new actress is younger is probably a coincidence; she doesn't even *look* younger.)

 

[Alexis]

Goodbye Peach Dynasty.

Sure initially Cristal didn't really catch on with viewers but Jesus let her become likable. How awful must the writers be if they cant transition her into a more sympathetic and likable character. Look at how original Dynasty's Sammy Jo's character progressed over the show. Do they not understand character progression and story arcs?
Resetting is just a lazy assed tool used by hack writers. Don't know how to resolve last seasons cliff hanger? Have a 5 year time jump. A character isn't becoming America's sweetheart? Recast her.

Idiotic.

I for one was starting to like Cristal, all they needed to do was show her more devoted to Blake and to stop the slutty hoochie vibe. She could have been redeemed with some better writing.

 

[Zable]

Face it. Original Dynasty was problematic in that it did things in ways that beggared belief.

For instance, it featured identity theft in a storyline where the imposter impersonated a man’s wife and he didn’t know it even though the imposter was a stranger. Viewers were asked to believe that the 2 women were alike in so many crucial ways. (And, no surprise, both women were played by the same actress.)

cwDynasty has the sense, at least, to separate the two: Man learns Latina wife married him using an alias. Man later learns there’s another Latina who has the same name as the alias his wife took. Not a problem. After all, look at how many John Smiths there are in the phone book. Ah wait, Latina stranger looks a little like wifey. Oh, isn’t that interesting. Man learns Latina stranger was the victim of identity theft; and that wifey was the thief. Now he has a problem. ….It’s not the case that Latina stranger has to play wifey in a bid to fool man & family, so I expect this storyline to be more believable and less boring. And thank God there's a new actress who's not a replacement actress for a role in the traditional sense.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Man learns Latina stranger was the victim of identity theft; and that wifey was the thief. Now he has a problem.

We'd still need a good reason why she did that, instead of just creating an alias to escape her past.
And since Cristal Season 1 didn't look like she had another secret, it's basically rewriting that character (without that character being present).
Besides, how was she going to benefit from this particular identity fraude? And would it be wise, being the wife of a famous industrialist and all that?
Is that clever?

Nevertheless, I'd love to see the look on their faces when all this is being revealed!
Fallon: What now? (*rolls eyes*)

One thing we can count on for season 2 is more awful clothes:

View attachment 12138

I like that outfit! It looks very "early 80s", like Blondie.

 

[RottenSkipper17]

If Nathalie Kelley didn't have the chops to elevate Cristal as a likable, charismatic and dynamic character, then that's on her, not the writers. Yes the writers share a large majority of the blame for botching the execution in the first place, but she gets to share some of the blame too. Also... I'm sorry but where is this talk about Cristal being more "devoted and loving" towards her husband coming from?! Blake is a horrible, disgusting excuse for a human being and his relationship/marriage to OldCristal was toxic to the extreme.

And if I have to be honest, Cristal is actually better off dead and six feet under because at least Blake won't ever have any more chances to win her back and then continue to manipulate and control her when the opportunity arises. I am hoping that NuCristal, regardless of whether or not she becomes a more evil and devious version of OldCristal, does not get roped into a marriage with Blake like her predecessor.

I would rather see Alexis and Blake marry again and torment each other for all eternity than see another decent woman trapped in a loveless, dysfunctional marriage. Blake deserves no one. He is selfish, narcissistic and completely heartless and he has made the lives of everyone that he purportedly claims to love a living hell. He should've died in that fire, not Cristal. At least the show might've been better off.

Sometimes if the character ends up not working regardless of whether or not the actor is any good, then that character just doesn't work period. Even if Nathalie Kelley wasn't so inferior and she actually had Oscar-winning capabilities as an actress, she probably still would've been canned anyway because there's still a chance Cristal would've flopped regardless.

This reminds me of what has just happened on General Hospital with Chloe Lanier. Despite of her having won a Daytime Emmy recently for her role of Nelle Benson, she still chose to leave the show in favor of other pursuits. But honestly I think the real reason for her departure is that the writers turned Nelle into a crazy, unhinged sociopath and she just wasn't satisfied with the direction they were going with her character and therefore she decided to run for the hills.

So what happened here in this situation? If Chloe Lanier was so good, then why did Nelle still fail as a character? The bottom line here ladies and gentlemen is the writers. They came up with such a convoluted and ridiculous backstory with Nelle, ranging with the whole stolen kidney situation with Josslyn Jacks, to her turning out to be Carly Corinthos's adopted kid sister, (which, come to think of it, seems kind of bizarre and practically incestuous since she did end up marrying Carly's son Michael, who technically might be considered her adopted nephew???), and then with her having been a mental hospital patient and being accused of murdering her last fiance.

The execution of Nelle was botched so horribly that regardless of Chloe Lanier's acting abilities she just wasn't going to work as a character. And maybe that's the whole reasoning behind the recasting of Cristal Flores Carrington and the writers felt that she just needed a major do-over.

What's really sad is that if Cristal had been cast with a stronger actress and she had better writing, she could have had a long-term, viable future on the show. And now this storyline is either going to save Dynasty or basically send it into an early grave.

 

[Willie Oleson]

^
Are we still talking about Blake, the fictional character?

 

[RottenSkipper17]

That's exactly who I was just talking about. Seriously, Blake is one of the worst male T.V. characters I have ever come across and that's saying a whole lot! I can definitely start to understand to some degree why Fallon and Steven turned out the way they did. They had no chance in life with horrible people like that for parents. I think Alexis is actually almost just as bad as Blake. What kind of person would have a complete stranger pose as her presumed dead son just to stick it to her ex-husband?

 

[Willie Oleson]

But soap isn't only about lovey-dovey romances.

 

[Grant Jennings]

I think a lot of us went from a first impression of "this isn't Krystle!" to thinking around mid-season "she may not be Krystle, but I like her anyway". When the show debuted most of the characters were painted with too broad a brush; add to that the fact that Cristal was the character probably the least like her original counterpart. This was enough to put a lot of us off Cristal/Celia/Nathalie. By mid-season the writing had improved and the writers and Nathalie Kelley both appeared to have a better grasp of the character. Unfortunately the producers, writers and network executives (especially the network executives) lacked the patience to allow the viewers the time to get to know and like Cristal.

I think a lack of patience is the show's biggest shortcoming. Consider the handling of the Hank/Adam plot: this could have (in my opinion should have) played out over several episodes instead of happening at breakneck speed the way it did. If they had a little patience they may have seen that viewers were beginning to warm to Cristal.

I don't understand the "shit storm" and "goodbye peach Dynasty" comments; we've known since the first episode that Cristal Flores was really Celia Machado so the possibility that there is a real Cristal Flores is entirely plausible.

I hope the new Cristal is a sympathetic and honorable person, the show already has enough conniving villains and psychopaths.

 

[Zable]

We'd still need a good reason why she did that, instead of just creating an alias to escape her past.
And since Cristal Season 1 didn't look like she had another secret, it's basically rewriting that character (without that character being present).
Besides, how was she going to benefit from this particular identity fraude? And would it be wise, being the wife of a famous industrialist and all that?
Is that clever?

Nevertheless, I'd love to see the look on their faces when all this is being revealed!
Fallon: What now? (*rolls eyes*)

Lol. Celia Machado was escaping her past in America, where you need a kosher Social Security Number to open doors: open bank a/c; get driver’s license; pay tax; get medical treatment. You can pluck a name out of thin air for an alias. But to pluck random numerals out of thin air for that SSN is plain dumb. It won't be in the system and you wouldn't be able to get a job for long without being caught. Hence why the identity theft.

Celia Machado was on the run. She’d stolen from a cartel; ‘murdered’ a man; and may have entered the US illegally. She had to take a different name & make herself as legit as possible, and all that would have happened long before she met Blake. Maybe it wasn’t clever, getting hitched to a prominent man. But she might have always felt that it was inevitable that the law would catch up with her one day, so when a wealthy and influential man proposed she might have thought why not, it could be insurance for the future. Who knows.

To be clear, everything I’ve said about “man learns” in my earlier post is conjecture, based on the announcement that a new hire is to play “the real Cristal Flores”. Nothing has been said about “the real Cristal Flores” being the current Mrs Celia Machado Carrington.

The way I see it, Celia’s backstory will be expanded, not rewritten. Not unless there’s some things along the lines of Iris and Sam are not her relatives.

I like that outfit! It looks very "early 80s", like Blondie.

Does nuFallon also have a heart of glass, I wonder.

 

[Willie Oleson]

where you need a kosher Social Security Number to open doors

Well, of course. But Dynasty never acknowledged that fact.

It's not like WE ever asked ourselves: but then who is the real Cristal Floris?

And why didn't she choose the identity of a dead person?

 

[Grant Jennings]

And why didn't she choose the identity of a dead person?

Maybe Celia thought she killed Cristal. Perhaps there are dozens of people in Venezuela she attacked and left for dead.

 

[Alexis]

If Nathalie Kelley didn't have the chops to elevate Cristal as a likable, charismatic and dynamic character, then that's on her, not the writers

That's silly, the actress played her how she was written. Just the way Emma Samms did. If she was written differently she would have played her differently.

 

[Alexis]

Face it. Original Dynasty was problematic in that it did things in ways that beggared belief.

So CW is now carrying on the tradition?

 

[Zable]

That's silly, the actress played her how she was written.

I don't think all those who auditioned for the role and had the same script turned in identical performances.

 

[Alexis]

I don't think all those who auditioned for the role and had the same script turned in identical performances.

And yet Nathalie was cast. As she obviously turned in the best performance.
If the character was written differently, more likeable/sympathetic then I'm sure she could have played her that way. The fact is it's the writers who messed up Cristal, not the actress they hired to play this on the run, identity thieving, cheating, sex tape making, unfaithful wife of a woman.