Bold & Beautiful Sends a Crushing Message to Fans of One Beloved Character
Friday the 13th lived up to its bad reputation this past week as The Bold and the Beautiful added several new photos to its opening credits. “What’s so awful about that?” you ask. What’s so awful about that, we reply, is that almost two years into Krista Allen’s run as Taylor, she still only has one dang picture in there.
Adding Naomi Matsuda (Li), Joshua Hoffman (RJ) and Lisa Yamada (Luna) to the mix is terrific. A new glamour shot of Kimberlin Brown (Sheila) — awesome. But considering that Taylor has been a core character since 1990, and her portrayer has pulled off the impossible by not only winning over fans of her predecessor but scoring a Daytime Emmy nomination to boot, she deserves more than a blink-and-you’ll-miss it slot.
We shouldn’t be surprised, though. Over and over again since Allen stepped in — heck, even before that — the soap has made it clear that it considers Taylor an also-ran, just someone to pick up Brooke’s leftovers when she’s tired of them. Taylor has never been treated as a threat, an equal. We had high hopes when the longtime rivals buried the hatchet and became friends — a twist that allowed both Allen and Katherine Kelly Lang to shine so brightly, we almost had to watch with sunglasses on. But instead of move forward, progress, the show moved backwards, returning Ridge to Brooke’s arms and Taylor to the role of the odd woman out.
As bad as that is, we fear the worst is yet to come. Because if Taylor isn’t getting an increased presence in the opening credits, it suggests that she’ll be having a decreased presence on air. And the role could hardly shrink more. First, she was sent packing to Rome with Steffy. And since then, she’s just weighed in on other characters’ storylines; she has none of her own.
We’ve suggested one storyline after another for Taylor — including one that would allow her to commiserate with Bill and find that the shot she really wants to shoot with him isn’t in his back. Alas, it would appear that The Bold and the Beautiful is determined to relegate Taylor to the role of The Cast-Aside and Forgotten. When the psycho who’s tried to murder half the characters on the show is front and center in a love story and the world-renowned psychiatrist who was once the princess of Morocco is no more than a talk-to… come on. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do the math!
