DRW50

Robert seems about the same as usual to me, just a more extreme version. The only part that seems forced to me is the usual recycled hostility with Aaron to faciliate Breakup #4333. But we're seeing him lose everything so he lashes out more. I hope it leads to him being broken off from Home Farm and having to build from the ground up, which he needs. It would also be nice to see more of him with Andy and Victoria, but who needs that when we can get more of "Locky/Lucky/Lachie" and his crybaby of a mother. I'm more annoyed with Chrissie and her usual hypocritical cluelessness - not caring that her scheme with Ross could lead mobsters to her door, because, "I didn't hurt my family!" and whining about how she is ashamed to be honest with her father, the rape apologist and hardcore misogynist. She's a pathetic little princess who needs a wakeup call. I think Aaron still has feelings for him but is trying to push those far down, because of the way Robert has behaved and because of his mother. I think he and Aaron will stay split up for a while, probably until right before the inevitable affair reveal. Aaron may just be single and try to be fine with it, while Robert is unhappily married and pines. What I'd like to see if Aaron get a new boyfriend (someone who is able to stand up to people, and someone who is effeminate while also being tough and sexual - I'd also like to see a gay actor cast in one of these roles on Emmerdale again...) and Robert work to break them up, and Aaron dates this guy (and slowly starts to fall for him) even as he starts up a love/hate sexual relationship with Robert again. But I doubt the show will do that.

Same old Bill. Shady money woes. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/clinton-foundation-bill-hillary-chelsea-117505.html?hp=t1_r

I guess Kim aged out of modern soaps, which is kind of pathetic, as she looks great and did well in her primetime appearances post-Passions. I'm surprised "Cartini" haven't called her. I think that was Ellen's last big story, yes.

Great to see more writing and fan creativity around.

Very good interview with Samantha Giles (Bernice). Spoilers. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/s12/emmerdale/interviews/a644870/emmerdale-samantha-giles-on-bernice-fight-future-plots-and-charity-work.html

The only ones who tried to do anything with Ellen were the Dobsons and others in the early 80's. I guess I can see where it wouldn't have been easy, but Pat Bruder was such a good all-around actress and she looked perfectly fine when styled age-appropriately. Kirk - just sort of there, really. Kirk fit the annoying (but not too annoying) rich brat role, and CLB, while green, had charisma and looks. His loss didn't hurt the show at all, but I do think ATWT missed a trick by not bringing Kirk back in that period when CLB wasn't on Y&R (93-97), even if they already had plenty of that type of man. He could have given Lisa something to do, could have had a rivalry with the recast Scott. Brian - this more aggressive Brian interests me more than Pinter's later good guy version, who was just sort of stolid. Marland made the right call phasing him out. Diana - the only real gem in the family. I've enjoyed everything I've seen of Kim's work in the role, she's a classic soap archetype in a decade that really knew how to write these types (Tina Lord, Mindy Lewis, etc.). I think Marland would have enjoyed her. Oh well. I can't say Kim was wrong to go on to try new things, but she left a void. I didn't until she was talking with David. Then you get her mannerisms/twang.

Great to see her, and Kathleen Noone too. I'm surprised Ron and Frank have never hired Kathleen - she can play all that camp.

January 15, 1996 Soap Opera Magazine

Thanks. (and I guess Sam didn't last long either) I've never seen her but I know she was in some B-movies. Have you ever seen her?

I loved Lindsay's work as Betsy. Warm, intelligent, strong. I really liked her voice. I can understand why Meg Ryan fans would not have cared for the changes in the role. Anyway, someone posted this a few weeks back. It's some 1983 footage - Margo/Tom happy and making a baby, Margo learning of John's "death" (probably the cruelest thing he ever did to her) at her engagement party, Ellen melting down, Barbara and Gunnar fleeing the asylum where James was keeping her, James and his creepy flunky strongarming Miranda Marlow's daughter Bilan. That's the first time I've seen her. Based on that wooden acting no wonder she didn't stay around long.

Not what I've seen of it, no. Betsy seems passive and twitchy, I never liked Steve, and Craig's behavior is so hostile - he repeatedly comes close to getting violent with Betsy. The best thing I can say is this story allowed for a bit role for the woman who played psycho housekeeper Molly Sherwood on EON.

JackPeyton doesn't really post here anymore but when I think of this show he's one of the main people I think of.

I hadn't gone back to watch some of the 1983 episodes that had poor sound/video quality, but I decided to today. As always it's so odd to see the show in this era - it has many long stretches of dullness mixed with OTT melodrama and ridiculous Moroder electronica. Take Tom's opening statement, which goes on far longer than I had expected (it's about 8-10 minutes), but is undercut by that ridiculous music. That music also mars the final scenes here, but these are otherwise some compelling scenes with Tom cross-examining Margo on the witness stand. It's SO hammy and SO hyperbolic but the electricity and the strong bond between Margaret Colin and Justin Deas makes it work. I love the part where he has to stop at one point to go put his head down, because it's killing him so much. Margo was so different from most previous ATWT heroines (as was Tom with previous leading men), it's still a surprise to me sometimes that they were so embraced. Maybe it's because there just wasn't a lot else to watch on the canvas at that point, other than James, and Steve/Betsy/Craig (which I have to admit I find extremely unpleasant as a viewer).

Was Lemay there for most of Blaine? I thought she was written out at one point toward the end of his run. I often get the feeling that by the early 80s the show had no real idea where to take Rachel.

I posted this the first time about 4 years back, but wanted to ask again. I was reading in a January 1968 TV Picture Life daytime roundup thing, and in the section for LIAMST, they say that before the show began airing, Leslie Charleson replaced Brooke Mills. Have any of you ever heard anything about this?

Thanks for reading. I'm glad the article had some surprises. It was interesting to see some of the people who tried out. Do you remember that guy's LOL role?

May 1976 Afternoon TV Stars

Hopefully you're right. I don't have enough trust in the show at this point to give them the benefit of the doubt, which is my fault, I realize...

I wonder if they even care about Lola enough to bother. She could turn out to be Shirley's long-lost daughter Sheryl.

Unfortunately, putting 15 different things in front of his lower half defeated the purpose. They've really miscast Babe. The actress is so gruesomely hammy I can't take anything she does seriously. DVO may be the worst actress I have ever seen on this show. And DTC basically said she will be back, even as current cast are fired in favor of "names," which is astonishing.

Littlefinger is and has always been an idiot, but even if he wasn't, it makes no real sense to put her amidst a lunatic and his sociopath of a father for some complex revenge plot. For all he knows she could be left hanging on the front door of Winterfell tomorrow. The whole thing involves every character involved completely changing what we know of them in order to advance the plot. And it involves Sansa moving past manipulation and having the ability to use mind control, because that really is the only way I would buy her having any sort of ability to work anything with either of them.

Does the Peabo Bryson OLTL theme have an actual title?

It's not so much about underestimating Sansa as to me having a difficult time believing that a family who have, for generations and generations, done nothing but assault and murder women (Roose murdered his mistress and his wife, I think), would see her as anything but another warm body to slowly put into the ground. The Telltale game got it right - it doesn't matter what you say to Ramsay. He is a lunatic. No amount of manipulation or cunning is going to stop that. If Sansa is just put into this story for a "shocking" relationship with Ramsay, followed by killing him, then it won't feel earned to me. D&D even basically said they only put her in it because viewers know her. So it's barely even about her, as most of her scenes this season have not felt like her to me.

Robert is her ex-husband. They got together in Dawn Acton's last few years in the role. When Tracy returned in 2002 or 2003, she sold a sob story to her family that he'd cheated on her; actually it was the reverse. I wonder why they didn't just bring the original actor back.