DRW50

Joni Ernst is the latest media darling for the Tea Party-loving media. They went gaga over her ever since her ad last year about castrating hogs. Sen. Helmet Hair is supposed to appeal to women and be sensible and intelligent and so on. So moderate! http://www.salon.com/2014/10/06/joni_ernsts_extremist_history_iowas_gop_senate_candidate_supported_prison_for_obamacare_officials/ The only thing I remember from her speech is that she didn't mention immigration reform, while the Cuban Congressman in the GOP who gave the speech in Spanish did. Double-dealing as always.

You mean like Joe Wilson shouting "You lie!" a few years ago and being labeled a hero? Far right hysterics already throw tantrums all over cable news and get big money for it. I'm not sure why we need to have more of it in Congress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmwNDYTCAnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbuKdIgeJTI

Sorry, this should come first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmwNDYTCAnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLMgA7HqXP4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbuKdIgeJTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e67YqdBMVA

Danielle Reyes of BB fame tweeted this Danielle Reyes ‏@daniellebb3 Catching up on #RHOA & I must say @claudiajordan got me standing up like I'm in church!She read NeNe the bible.Pass the offering plate.

I think Eastenders as it should have been probably left around 2000 or 2001, if not a little sooner. One of the reasons I'm sorry Kirkwood and Louise Berridge both had disastrous tenures is because I think they tried to move the show away from some of the excess and some of the sneering Mitchell-style posturing that the show doesn't need and never needed. Sadly these failures, and the relative failures of all-singing, all-dancing, manic depressive voids like the Carters, mean the show is only further boxed in.

Yes, it was, and it wasn't that good either. A lot of EE fans care more about the soap wars and boosting and showing how loyal they are and getting caught up in hype. Highlights of his last tenure included grandmother-smothering bisexual Steven Beale, Heather's baby daddy storyline, Tanya burying Max alive, Jack Branning the walking penis, Nick holding the care hostage with a broken chair leg, and Stacey murdering Archie but it being covered up, because mental illness means you're a murderer so hey, what can you do about it? This was praised because it was "cool" to like Santer and DTC. And now that DTC is back, it's the same all over again. The only good thing I can say is that, sans Sharon, he seems to have finally realized a little that this is not Dallas or Dynasty no matter how much he wants it to be.

When Charity first returned in 2009 I wasn't sure if she'd fit in (as I wasn't sure about Cain), but Emma Atkins is just so terrific at making Charity human as well as scheming and wicked. I was watching an old clip where she kneed Jai in the balls after he gave her divorce papers. Hilarious. I don't think I've ever seen Rachel. Some fans seem to like her, others don't, others say she was ruined when they paired her with Sam. Ross is such an entertaining character, a real spark plug. He reminds me a lot of a young Cain, just in terms of the animosity and sad puppy mixture and the crazy energy (thankfully minus the animal killing and penchant for barely legal girls). His plan to get Emma back into their lives by scaring her with a break-in was nuts (and the last break-in worked out so well for him...), but he was so committed to it. Finn being dumbfounded but going along because it was going to happen anyway amused me. They have a great relationship. It's hard for me to believe they're related to James. They both remind me far more of their mother. I just wonder if Ross can handle how much this is going to hurt him in the end. It's a shame Michael Parr will likely lose the NTA to that TLC reject overgrown baby from Eastenders. Robert and Aaron, moving more into that stage where Aaron is going to lose the plot at either not having Robert or only having him for sex. He obviously wants far more, and sometimes Robert does too, but Robert gets scared and defensive. Sometimes the writing is a little shaky, but it's an interesting push-and-pull, with first-rate chemistry. I worried they were going to pull back on the sexual nature of it with the backlash, and I still worry about that, but the positioning today of a pensive, emotional Aaron, mostly clothed contrasted with a lustful Robert, trying not to think about anything but the physical nature of it all, Robert nearly naked and on all fours...I've rarely seen a soap present a man this way when he's with another man. The way it was done was so casual, yet made such a statement. That's one of the reasons I've liked the story so far - it's ignored so many of the tropes of gay relationships on soaps and there's just something both wicked and tender about the whole thing. I hope that continues.

Because, IMO, DTC doesn't know how to write genuine drama. He never has. It's all camp and shock value. That's why the attempts at emotional drama (like the Carters) just don't work for me. Denise is an alcoholic who beats Patrick, so...

I generally thought Danny was reformed, by modern soap standards, for most of his better years with Michelle. After Lenz left he started quitting and rejoining the mob, admittedly, but the only time I thought they pushed him as a sexy crime boss was that period with the Labines where he slept with Mary May. The Tony/Marah stuff with the attempted rape was so awful because, among other reasons, it wasn't even treated as a serious crime. They spun it as Marah "empowering" herself by taking off her clothes and yelling for Tony to get it over with. I will never understand what they were doing. I don't know if Rauch had the horn for Lindsey McKeon, or what.

I think by the time they recast Michelle, Susan Ward had already gotten those awful fake breasts and moved into films. Shawn Batten could have been decent.

The new Peter had no real storyline, although DTC tried to make him unlikeable and unpleasant and elitist, I guess to try to contrast him with Jay (at this time they were doing a Jay/Lola/Peter/Abi quad), and probably because I don't believe DTC has ever liked the Beales anyway. Some fans liked him and some seemed to think he was wooden. The actor, again wisely, quit, so he'll be leaving sometime in 2015. Tamwar is still around, mostly just to be verbally abused by Stacey and Kat in sidesplitting "comedy" scenes at the market. I'm still not sure why DTC sidelined most of the younger set just to bring in the Carter kids, whom he also sidelined. Then again I'm still not sure why DTC implied that bisexuals are evil and mentally ill, and had Steven Beale try to murder his grandmother, and that was almost a decade ago. I guess when you're the best soap producer ever, you can do what you want.

I'm not sure. If they were aging the character up, someone like Jennifer Hammon (the first Karen on PC) might have been OK. The whole custody battle under Taggart made me hate Michelle for good. I'm not sure why Taggart thought having two separate custody battles where most of the people involved behaved horribly was a good idea. And when she went out with Bill, they seemed like a middle-aged couple from 1952, not the kids I used to love when Miner and Buffinton were in the roles. On paper seeing Michelle, Ben, and Bill together again should have been great. Instead...it was just people I didn't know, with familiar names. (I do think Taggart did a decent job with Ben)

I had no strong investment in the characters. I think with better writing Tony could have been more of an asset to the show, because I thought Jordi Vilasuso was a decent actor with strong charisma. I'll never understand why they had him try to rape Marah. The whole thing was disgustingly handled.

It's hard to believe he was the same boy who stole Sam Mitchell's underwear. Now he's wearing the Arthur & Pauline Fowler Memorial Sweater Collection. EE has some hot guys but many of them seem to look like they came out of a catalog, so it's always nice to have someone who is attractive but looks like someone in real life. I think if the show didn't have problems with younger male characters he might have gone by now, but I think you can do a lot with Jay if you try.

For all the talk of being the new Phil and Grant, Jay and Ben aren't related, didn't grow up together, and Jay is a very handsome guy. The last clip is kind of sad, as Jay spends most of it trying to stop Ben from blowing up and/or getting another pasting. He does it at least 3 times. He's the only person in Ben's life who can even tolerate him. I guess you can see why Ben projected. The show isn't going there, but as badly as it would end, a part of me kind of wishes they would.

He could, but he seems to be done with the show and is still doing those documentaries. I'm not sure what Grant would even do (unless he's supposed to get Phil out of the prison). If I was writing the show, he'd come back and accidentally kill Phil, but I'm not writing the show (which is probably for the best...).

Ben's latest generic coming out/self-loathing story was supposed to pair him with Johnny Carter, a vastly underwritten character mostly there for a weak attempt at an "iconic moment" when he came out to his Muppet-face father last year. The guy who played Johnny sat around for a year doing nothing and wisely decided to try his luck elsewhere. As a result, Ben is stranded in the storyline, so they took what was likely supposed to be with Johnny and instead had him try to kiss Jay. The actors sold it well enough (Jay is very protective of Ben, and someone like Ben, who is pretty much a walking nerve of need, projected his own homosexuality onto the situation), but it was written on the fly. This ended with Ben nearly forcing himself on Abi to "prove" he's straight (which won't be addressed, because DTC likely only cares about sexual assault if it involves his favorite chronically depressed Carter) and Jay stuck in the middle. The sad thing is as much as my brain rejects those types of plots, the actors really do have the chemistry to make that type of Ben/Jay story work (and it would finally give Jay something to do). But I don't think the show is going there.

I mostly thought Carmen and Danny worked - Danny wasn't much of a character, but PAS had chemistry with Joie Lenz and had intensity and sincerity in equal measures. He was a real find, which is likely the reason they beefed up his role so quickly. The real problems for Danny began when they cast that dead fish Nancy St. Alban. Carmen was annoying in too large of doses, but she was a good camp villainess. Claire's return should have provided tons of story for the whole Bauer family, and did for a few months...then it stopped.

That's terrific.

I don't have a lot of British soap magazine stuff, but did have this.

I don't think the Labines were suited to GL. I wish they'd taken the ATWT job they were offered around that time. As soon as they started writing Blake like Lucy Coe I had to take a big step back. They had some good ideas, and Rauch did, most likely, actively sabotage them, but it just didn't work for me. GL was a bizarre hybrid of a show. I don't know who could have managed it. I didn't care that much for Taggart either but she or Jill Lorie Hurst may have come closest.

Daily Mail put up a nice piece on her. This includes video of her in the early Deirdre days (with Jerry, which is nice - I really liked their relationship). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2917307/Coronation-Street-s-Anne-Kirkbride-dead-60-short-illness.html

There was a little story for Rick (mostly objecting to Danny/Michelle), but not much. I actually thought the first year or so of San Cristobel was entertaining enough. Yes, it was cheesy and out of place, but Bradley Cole and Laura Wright had starcrossed chemistry (they never had any as Jeffrey and Cassie, oddly enough), and I enjoyed Edmund's scheming and smirking. It was only after the wedding that I started to lose interest. B&E's GL increasingly lost steam, and began to insult my intelligence (I was especially annoyed with Buzz being able to change paternity tests), but the show was watchable enough until they left and the Labines and Rauch (who clearly didn't get on) were in charge. The show immediately developed backbreaking tonal issues, with cringeworthy attempts at comedy intercut with cringeworthy, 1985-sitcom-esque attempts at social commentary, and drama that was far too serious and violent for the show, especially since they didn't treat it seriously enough. The whole "Tony roughs up Selena" story is one I'll never get. And they just about ruined Edmund for me.