DRW50

Yesterday I was watching this pay cable short film, which was in part made by (and co-starring) Arleen Sorkin. Directed by the wonderful Tom Schiller (who made many great shorts for SNL and the unreleased cult film Nothing Lasts Forever), this also stars Lauren Hutton and Carrie Fisher. There is a wealth of talent involved, to the point where Patrick Duffy just pops up for one scene, but the most interesting part is at around 22 minutes, when we get a montage of people offering "friendly" motherhood advice. You can see Brooke Adams as one of the "helpful" people, but then you really start to get into the part that threw me - several DAYS actors who were not credited with the cast (they do get a "thanks," which presumably means they helped financially as the whole making of feature has a runner on begging for money). They include Macdonald Carey, Frances Reid, and Leann Hunley. It's fun seeing Macdonald and Frances playing characters very far from Tom and Alice. The "thanks" section also has Lee Smith (presumably the costume designer Arleen credited for creating the famous jester outfit she wore on DAYS), Chip Dox (who was an art director at DAYS), Deidre Hall, Al Rabin, and Shelley Curtis. The credits are at around 27 minutes. I was wondering if @JAS0N47 or anyone else might know if any of the other names have ties to DAYS? You can also see a bit of Leann in this behind-the-scenes clip:

Thanks for the extra info. In the long run I think Hallows was the best producer they had.

That definitely had potential, mainly thanks to Cynthia Watros. Sorry, I know this is veering off topic...

I still wish I knew what his plans would have been. I can't say any that happened were great to me, beyond the increased emphasis on character and the longer scenes, but we'll never know.

I was looking at an article from 1982 which described Brookside (which was also set on a cul-de-sac) as "Knots Landing, scouse-style." I knew Knots ran in the UK, I even saw a clip on Points of View complaining about how many times the show had been preempted by the BBC, but I didn't realize it was already an easy press reference there by '82.

If the departure was very sudden, they may not have had the time to change the scripts. Or maybe Frank just didn't care about making the effort. They will probably just have him on long enough to reveal he was the baddie all along and have Sonny, Jason, Valentin save the day. The main way he might stay is if they finally give up on Sidwell and just offload some of those stories onto him.

An episode from late January has been on Youtube for a while. Can't remember if any others ever have (I think saynotoursoap used to have two up).

It's going to get much worse. He is going to make huge cuts to science, the environment, shut down the Department of Education, etc. And no one cares. Even the coverage of the protests about USAID today have both the right (Politico's Trump water-carrier Rachel Bade) and the left (the repulsive Ken Klippenstein, who spends most of his time either going on Steve Bannon's show, talking about how stupid and pathetic Democrats are, or posting any clip of a senator over 60 he can find to act like they are at death's door) shaming them, saying that USAID is for the elites and proves how out of touch Democrats are. Even now the Democrats are still somehow to blame. Nothing Trump does matters. Even planes colliding with helicopters gets more focus on people figuring out which non-white man to blame. As for Palestine - it's very sad, but this is what a lot of Palestine supporters wanted. They were thrilled Trump won. They can be happy now.

I'm sure we'll see Violet again... Lack of family probably should be a reason to write the character out, but he might be better off on his own given what a drag Finn was. I still see some fans talking about how he was the only one who loved Liz's kids and Lucky can never compare. They must really be committed.

Tracy being at the heart of this would make sense. Or Olivia. They both have mob ties that could further justify wanting to keep Gio safe. And now I've realized Tracy is a great grandmother to a 20-year-old. It is one of those moments where I wonder if they will even ponder the dynamics beyond having Ned joke about her being "great-granny." I think Chase is a decent enough B-player, maybe paired off with Sasha if they are both staying around (unless they de-relate her from Cody), but maybe just don't have him at the Nurses' Ball again... JPS also has an extremely vocal fanbase. By the end I don't think Howarth and Easton did. Not to that level, anyway.

This Wilma was always worth watching, even if I wished they'd allowed her to be less of a caricature. She was a good reminder of what Natalie had come from. Sometimes I wonder if Kate used her as inspiration for Janet. Brooke/Erica was the feud that lasted, but Erica/Natalie is the one that interests me most. I don't know when exactly it ended, as Natalie was sanitized later on.

I think GL was also just done. The show was incredibly lucky to have lasted as long as it did. Ellen Wheeler probably was not the right choice to take that journey, but if they'd had another year, they could have made it work. I think some of the choices did work, just not enough, and I think GL at its core was a punchy show that could have benefited from a lo-fi look. Just not the one they got. I'd still rather watch some of that last year again than most of what ATWT was putting out.

Thanks. So I guess they will stop...if you have a breakdown. Wonderful backstage atmosphere. The way you describe it shows what this Gio story could be compared to what we are going to get. And now I'm reminded they had the whole Trina paternity story which also ended up going nowhere. If they'd ever had any real interest in Trina/Gio that might have been a good writing choice to have them bond over these lies. They still can, even as friends, if the show cares.

I can't remember so I'm genuinely asking - wasn't it said that the whole awful breakdown/pill story they were doing last year was truncated because Maurice didn't want to play it?

That's why I said if he had cared. I know his history with soaps. Search for Tomorrow alone. I loved Melanie Smith's Emily enough to where I would have had a hard time accepting a recast, but I don't think Kelley was ever a good choice. She ticked boxes of vulnerability or sex appeal, but she lacked the heart. Her shadings tended to veer more toward pathetic and sleazy. Even just walking around A&M she gave porn star. Melanie's Emily was never that way, even when she was cheating and behaving badly. Kelley had some good moments, especially during Emily/Hal, but she was never Emily to me.

Hollyoaks of 1998 was likely more appealing to a younger audience. I imagine being on Channel 5 didn't help - wasn't the channel just starting at the time?

Admittedly I'm not the biggest Lois fan, but I actually do think there's potential in someone who prided herself on honesty and integrity keeping such a huge secret from mother and son for decades. It's much more interesting, on paper, than the years Lois spent going on about Ned's scheming, or the recent "story" about losing her accent. The problem is, as a few have already pointed out, the story is poorly thought out and probably won't have any aftermath beyond Brook Lyn being mad at her mother (maybe) for a brief time (unless Rena leaves and there's some permanent rift). I do hope they will at least bring up Olivia's own paternity lies about Dante and how that may color her reaction to Lois' actions, but that type of history/nuance probably went out the door with Mulcahey, unless "the historian" wants to surprise us.

That special often feels like a goodbye to the genre for me.

Between this, Mulcahey's tenure, and the frequent NAC speculation, GH is still king at suspense...just not oncamera.

GL was the CBS soap that barely held on. Sometimes I wonder if ATWT might have been kept if Moonves hadn't wanted to give his wife a job, but P&G seemed fully checked out, so I put some blame on them. If Frons had genuinely cared about all the ABC soaps, they could have run a few more years. He sacrificed them for a show that only lasted a few months, and a show people only remember because of a guy that was accused of harassment. I would say he could be happy his beloved GH is still on, but he's on the outside looking in, forever and always.

Carly has been so burnt out for a variety of reasons - overuse, she has been on top for too long, her kids don't give her good enough story (although she has had some with the Michael burn plot), she was an anti-heroine who they decided to write as a heroine, and they never found another proper partner for her outside of Jason and Sonny (they were never very serious about Jax/Carly).

I'm not sure if those are the same episodes or not, but the final week was uploaded by Chandler Hill Harben a number of years ago. I went back a month or two ago as I was trying to remember if there were any he had up that had been taken down.

This is one of the reasons why ATWT's last years just make me angry to even think about - so much of their last 10-15 years. Many of the pieces were still in place. Yet we got so much heartlessness, callous, and sickness with people who were clueless or ashamed of ATWT's essence - and as a bonus, a steady stream of stunt casting that no one asked for and led to a slew of characters being ruined. I don't really care about how location shots looked as that was never what I watched soaps for. You could bring F.W. Murnau back from the dead, I'm still not going to sit through Danielle pawing all over Craig as she calls him "daddy."