DRW50

I know her performances were often mannered and she's a little bit of a self-parody, then and now, but I really enjoy Barbra Streisand's early TV specials, and I get so much out of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxwfYZJ-Zxo&list=FLk5YpQN83TaCoh2XtNG7cdQ

Michael Graziadei was on tonight's episode of SHIELD.

Always nice to see Ben here. The show has tons of dead weight. Sadly, they would fire the wrong people.

Jennifer Roszell? That's random. Surprised to see no CC on there. Or Grant Aleksander. GL and ATWT were "my" shows, and I will always believe there is a place for Guiding Light in this world. This will likely not go anywhere, but I wish them well. And anyone in the soap "press" who sneers at this project can kiss my ass.

Promo about 29 minutes in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeQMI68ZYdc

Congressman arrested for cocaine possession. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/trey-radel-cocaine-possession-100075.html?hp=t1_3

The episode got a 6.0 and about 12 million viewers, .2 lower than last week, but basically about the same. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/11/19/sunday-cable-ratings-the-walking-dead-wins-night-talking-dead-real-housewives-of-atlanta-nascar-more/216512/

My mother barely had the time to watch but she always liked Betsy a lot (Meg Ryan's Betsy) and Steve, and so on, and of course Bob, Kim, Lisa, etc. She barely remembered Colin's Margo and preferred HBS.

That's weird - my mother was a fan of hers too. She barely watched ATWT during that time (she was busy) but she would recognize Maggie when she saw photos of her and when she started watching some of the old episodes again she told me she always liked Maggie. Never really knew why the character ceased to exist after 1985.

Heads up Revenge fans - in March, ABC is moving the show to 10 PM. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/11/19/abc-releases-midseason-schedule-betrayal-canceled-revenge-moves-to-10pm-suburgatory-premieres-january-15/216813/

I was thinking mostly of the time after the Moldavian Massacre. If they should have gone on break. So Leann quit? I was never sure if she left or was fired. On the Jump the Shark board (I haven't been there in years) someone said producers ordered everyone to have minimal movement or emotion, and barely react to anything.

Do you think they should have taken it off the air for a while to retool?

Alanna Masterson, who was on Walking Dead this week and will also be in next week's episode, played Y&R's Colleen from 94-95, per IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1315153/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t16

Wow, the woman who played Tara (the sister) was Colleen on Y&R in the mid-90s. I didn't know that. It's too bad Sony took down passnum1's videos. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1315153/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t16

I read some comments that you can look at the Governor's journey as a bizarro version of Rick's in the first episode (the father is dying and the women live - the women are alive and the men are gone/dying; the Governor saves a live little girl whereas in the first episode Rick saw a walker girl). I don't know if that was intentional, but it interested me. I don't watch Homeland so people who watch it might see this as a cheap shot. Fans of both might be interested in this. http://variety.com/2013/tv/columns/the-walking-dead-takes-a-well-timed-holiday-1200833627/

Blake Gibbons (Coleman, GH) will have a pretty big guest role on Supernatural tomorrow night.

Ricky Norwood has re-signed with the show. http://entertainment.stv.tv/showbiz/330763-ricky-norwood-extends-eastenders-contract/ I had a good laugh at some of the meltdowns over this on DS. Is this seriously the biggest problem with EE at the moment? I don't care about Fatboy, but Norwood is a charismatic and not all that horrible actor. I saw a post that said something like, "What does it say when they ignored ALL of our axe lists?" Well, it says you aren't in charge of the show. If the show dumped Kim, Tamwar, and Fatboy, at a time when they've already fired a number of minorities and have lost almost any sense of diversity they ever had, that would look terrible. And I have no idea how these characters are more pointless than the likes of Roxy Mitchell.

I could understand why. He saved them over and over and made tough decisions they weren't able to make. He was a father figure to the little girl. The sister who wasn't a lesbian (this isn't said as an insult - the other sister said she was gay at one point) was lonely and had been for a long time. I thought this was an interesting idea that would have been best served in a minisode, not a full episode. The opening scenes with him staggering through the street and burning down Woodbury music video style were among the very worst I can remember on TWD, and they threw me right out of the show, which I hate. Once we got past this and past the tedium of the Governor muttering through a beard so fake it looked like a department store Santa Claus dipped in charcoal, I began to get more into the episode. There were some wonderful set pieces - going into the nursing home (genuinely frightening and done without a ton of gore), killing the father, the pit of walkers. The only problem I have with all of this is that set pieces aren't an episode. The episode itself mostly seems to be set up to remind that the Governor can't be redeemed and that his new family will be torn away, likely violently and with heavy fatalities. I think a five or ten minute set of scenes could have expressed this well enough. For me the only character who seemed "real" was the father. The rest I struggled with, especially the sister, although I liked her a little more toward the end of the episode. I have a feeling she is the first one dead next Sunday though.

Do they do some of these to give the cast a rest? I know last season there were two that barely had any of the main cast. Not sure it's a great idea to air these back-to-back.

I guess just the way the woman was snuffed out. She was trying to help, and then BAM she gets shot in the head. I'm used to the zombie gore, but that was more of a surprise. It's good that the show can still shock me, but I felt sorry for her.

I felt so sorry for that woman. Usually deaths on this show don't bother me, in terms of any horror factor, but that one did. There was something so brutal about it.

I'm not sure how Carol could have saved Glenn.

The Stewart family were still a strong presence in 1979. By the time he returned in 1985, most of them were gone, aside from Betsy and Ellen (and sometimes David). I could see him focusing on Betsy if he'd stayed on. Frankly, she is far more believable to me than Lily ever was. Well it's a little more...pure, for lack of a better term, because there isn't the unwieldy roster, and some of his pet issues as a writer (like the toxic Snyder interrelations) aren't on display.

Definitely. I love ATWT's cast in this time. I mean, look at Judith McConnell alone. She may have looked or played a little older than her age, but even in a supporting role, on her way out, she had a certain poise and effortless glamour that made ATWT unique. That's not even getting into Hays, Fulton (who plays a somewhat damaged and self-destructive, foolhardy ingenue, all while in her late 30s), and so many other talents. In terms of stories, I actually think the Willows story is exciting and fascinating, mostly because of Fulton and the woman who plays Hester (who is a very convincing hysteric). The other stories are treading water, or feel very much grafted on (Annie/Jeff and their married lovers), although the Sheila/Tom/Barbara saga had potential, as does Betsy's struggle for identity (which feels more authentic than most young rebel stories on soaps) and Melinda is a huge spark plug. I think the actual storylines, what we have of them, are missing, but the potential is there. It's just the younger people who drag the tone down, along with some of the production value. I don't even really want to compare to GH because, aside from Laura and perhaps Bobbie (who was more of an anti-heroine), they had a tough time creating young heroines. Just comparing it to AMC - Brooke English was not that much younger than Annie, and she'd arguably been through even more than Annie (rape, abortion), but she seemed more alive, whereas Annie just seems extremely stale to me, and tedious, whining away about her married boyfriend. Suzanne Davison has a soulful quality and I think she could have carried more story, but most of the actresses who are a little older, the age of ingenues on other soaps that were doing well at this time, don't quite cut it. One of the few who does for me - Arianne Munker - was written out/left the show within six months. Of course ATWT got the last laugh here, because by the mid-80s they'd built up a popular younger group, and a popular young heroine in Lily (I didn't care for her but she was popular and I can assume she helped bring younger viewers to the show), while the ABC soaps were really floundering and starting to seem strange and stale and trapped in their own reality. But at this particular time, if I was an ATWT viewer and I'd gone over to watch OLTL and seen the likes of Karen and Jenny, I might have been torn on which show to follow.