AMC 2.0 got a lot of stick from some folks for "no Erica, no Kendall" and a smaller role for Bianca, at least initially per Eden Riegel's availability, but it had Angie and the Hubbards at its center alongside the Chandlers and Miranda/recurring Bianca. I thought that worked perfectly. You can't tell me Debbi Morgan is an unacceptable central hub for any show. She anchored Loving and she was only there two years!

OMG at that photo of her father trying to swim out to find her himself. 

Exactly.   I just think it is sad that all of other media, including other things in daytime (talk shows both classy and trashy), have prepared these same viewers for all types of storytelling.  And these soaps/networks are so afraid to go there.  People that watch TV that airs in the day also watch TV that airs at night, no matter when/how they choose to watch.   I absolutely know people that watched How to Get Away With Murder, featuring an incredible Black lead and many diverse stories, was also truly over the top and soapy, also used to watch Y&R when the Winters family was treated as important.  But daytime cannot have the same type of Black woman at the center of a show?  Grey’s Anatomy and ER before it were incredibly diverse, and Grey’s is a show steeped in romance.  These are our people!

This topic is kind of hilarious - the horrible Jessica Simpson talks about this at length in her trash book. She basically blamed her relative lack of pop success on coming in last after Britney and Christina, and no matter how hard Sony pushed her, nothing she ever did could compete with those two in the early 00's.    Who knew back in 2000 it would be Beyonce that would the one to emerge as the pop culture icon that can still have relevant success (though she's morphed from a singles artist to an albums artist in her career)? 

She’s a gifted singer but she’s often clueless as to how to use it. Her oversinging eventually just became a joke, and then she was better known as a behind-the-scenes bitch who got into fights with P!nk and Mary J. Blige.   I do hear “Fighter” a lot in the wild, but people are suckers for a pump-up song. Stripped was just such a grab bag of styles. She also tried to hone in on the Latin pop market too.