A Critic’s Review Of The Bold and the Beautiful: History, Delusion & Sacrificial Lambs

When it comes to The Bold and the Beautiful, every fan has their own opinion – and Soap Hub is no different. For five days, we sat and watched the good, the bad, and everything in between, and now we offer you a handy review, and a cheeky critique, of B&B’s week that was.

The Bold and the Beautiful: The Critic’s POV

After promising — not to mention promoting the Hell out of — a milestone 9,000 episode that would honor the show’s rich history and celebrate “Fashion, fantasy, and fun” we got 19 minutes of everybody singing Steffy’s (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) praises. Oh, and a few tired flashbacks. Flashbacks that didn’t even scratch the surface of the multifaceted “bitch goddess” that is Steffy.

Way to oversell and underdeliver. That’s The Bold and the Beautiful way. Also, I get that as a soap opera viewer I’ve got to sustain my disbelief, and I’d like to think that I can do as good a job as the rest of you. But you mean to tell me that Finn (Tanner Novlan) hired and flew in an “Italian craftsman” to install some bells in the bell tower and she was none the wiser? *Rolls eyes so far into the back of my head there’s a threat I’ll never see again*

Further B&B Musings

* Welcome Ridge Forrester Jr. (Joshua Hoffman). It seems like only yesterday you were a rarely mentioned, barely remembered relation — oh, wait. That’s exactly the case.

* Without a doubt Taylor (Krista Allen) and Bill (Don Diamont) taking a deluded as always Sheila (Kimberlin Brown) to task was the highlight of the week, but the scene really did serve to underscore Sheila’s very saliant point that she’s always made to suffer for her crimes, but no one else in the cast is expected to do likewise.

Taylor shoots Bill in the back and everybody decides it’s fine because “she wasn’t in her right mind.” Bill uses and abuses every woman who’s had the misfortune to fall for his line of bull and he’s got quite a few attempted murders under his belt but *shrugs* “That’s just Bill.”

* Don’t get me started on Katie (Heather Tom) and Carter (Lawrence Saint-Victor). He acted like a real gentleman when Bill got up in his face but don’t you just know that Katie is going to end up with Dollar Bill again? Sigh.

* Thomas (Matthew Atkinson)…well, we all know Thomas’s litany of sins so why list them? Needless to say, despite everything he’s done the most severe punishment he’s ever faced was being sent to Coventry [that’s old people speak for being “deliberately ignored or ostracized.”] for about four weeks. Big deal.

I could go on and on, but you all watch this show. You know these characters and their crimes and all the ways they’ve managed to wriggle out of facing justice.

* And I’m not saying Sheila shouldn’t be sent up the river. Quite the contrary. But why is she the “sacrificial lamb” so to speak? More precisely, why is she the exception that proves the rule that people on B&B aren’t actually supposed to suffer long-term for their criminality?

The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS. For an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.

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