DRW50

That's neat. Peggy's expression is my favorite. What are they so shocked by?

I voted. Poor Donna never gets a break.

Evan Bayh is not running for reelection to his Senate seat.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/15/bayh.retirement/?hpt=T1

The Republicans as a party have done little the past year but run far to the right, pander to a very limited voter base, highlight clowns, and wait for the Democrats to screw up. And yet again, the Democrats screwed up. Say goodbye to Congress this year Dems.

Wow, their second longest serving character has only been there since 2005? Talk about turnover.

James Thornton, gorgeous farmer John Barton, has been hit by a car Thankfully, he's going to recover, but they're going to have to rewrite stuff for a while.

http://entertainment.stv.tv/tv/157482-emmerdale-star-james-thornton-hit-by-car/

I think Santer's ideas may still be in place up to summer or later, I'm not sure though.

I don't remember most of the story. I did like some of it. I was just confused as to the point.

Where did Danny disappear to? I'm so tired of this whole Archie "Who dunnit". I don't even care anymore. It seems like for the most part, whoever did it, did the town a favor.

It's too much of the same scenes over and over, too many obvious red herrings, and the cops telegraph everything to the residents of Walford.

Danny will be back, I think he just left to try to manipulate Roxy and Ronnie into feeling sorry for him, I don't know. He needs a haircut and some acting classes. I don't know why so many of the men brought in over the past few years have been so weak and empty (Syed, Danny, Callum, Ryan, Dr. Al). It's hard to care about any of them.

Actually, I'm not sure how long did that afair last. They had a one night stand, Ian discovered it, proposed and wanted to use the wedding to humiliate her.

I always found Ian/Jane a terrrible couple. Grant was much more suitable. Now – I kind of don't care about her, after oscillating between loving and hating the character.

I like Ian and Jane, mostly because she seems to genuinely love him and he also tries to love her, instead of getting sick of her. I like them in comedy stories more than the baby stuff. I hate the baby stuff, it's too much, and lazy writing.

I don't like it when the show goes overboard on Ian bashing, which has been one of the stronger points with Santer, I think generally he's had some respect for Ian as a character. I hated stuff in the past where someone would flush Ian's head down a toilet, or they would have Ian kick a dog.

Thanks.

This was also the time of the Grant/Jane affair I've heard such bad things about?

I think it was the most awful under Brigie de Courcy. Before and after Grant dumped Carla in the litter bin. It was painfully awful for the whole of her tenure.

Was Carla that woman he was living with while he was in Spain? That must have been more of the 2006 I didn't see.

I think it depends on how you feel about certain characters and what they're doing. For instance, I have heard that Santer's run was a golden period, but I thought 2008 was a huge waste of a year, in part because most of the characters I had interest in were damaged or given boring stories, and also because that was when Santer's inability to plot a story beyond shock value flared up the most. Chelsea gets hooked on drugs for a week and is then cured! Clare is thrown out of a taxi and...reads a black book for a few months before simpering out of town! Lauren runs over Max and...nobody cares. Tanya buries Max alive and takes up with Jack and becomes such a shrew that it's hard to watch any scene she has, even years later. Steven Beale is a quasi-bisexual loon who tries to smother Nana Pat after the worst hit and run sequence ever, then disappears. Stacey and Bradley stuck in go-nowhere stories with dull romantic partners because the show is too afraid to actually let them be happy, as that is "boring" in their mind. Endless garbage with Sean/Roxy/Jack, culminating in a poorly acted, not all that well directed Christmas/NYE revelation borefest.

I've heard that 2006 was EE's worst year. I haven't seen any of that year, beyond Dennis's funeral. From what I've seen of the awful Kevin Wicks, if he was a major part of 2006, I'm not missing a lot.

I've heard 2004 wasn't good either but I've never seen that year.

The odd part is that the year which ended up with a new producer firing like 20 people, 1997, I actually enjoyed, generally. Not all of it (I hated the Irish relatives they brought in for the Beales), but some was quite good.

That show sounds pretty decent on paper.

I remember those somewhat. I mostly remember Kindred because the lead actor in it, Mark Frankel, was very good on Sisters as the handsome, suave British mysterious type who romanced Sela Ward. Sadly he was killed in a wreck not long after Kindred was off the air. That show also had Stacy Haiduk.

Profit was very critically acclaimed and seen as ahead of its time and so on. I usually dislike anything critics tell me is ahead of its time or, worst of all, "too good for TV," but I know a lot of people did think it was underrated. That was the one where Adrian Pasdar slept naked on the floor of his apartment or his office, wasn't it?

It looks kind of like the Kate & Allie theme.

Poor Rose Alaio, she never got the success she deserved on soaps.

There's something oddly touching about that theme. I don't know why. The music probably.

The one note of interest in this entire enterprise is struck, against formidable odds, in the solid performance, at times suggesting a wicked parody of Jessica Savitch, of Patricia Kalember as Merrill. Joe Stuart is the producer of ''Loving.''

Was Jessica Savitch dead by this time?

It's funny they single her out as the highlight when she was supposedly fired in 1984 because she cut her hair.

I do think Patricia is a very good actress (she was my favorite on Sisters before they butchered her character), I'm surprised they didn't keep her around.

They want Donna dead too? Do they just kill off all the classic 80s characters?

I love the cast of this show but I just can't watch, it's too traumatizing. Mandy Patinkin is a well known diva but I can see why he left.

Yeah, this would be relatively fast by UK standards. Eastenders and Corrie have been having a handover for months and even then the new work will not show up until autumn. I also think the flash forward episode is the cause of this. Even then I think we will see changes.

2001-2004 was a big time of change from change at Coronation Street, a way of telling new stories but not going too far from the established traditions. I think 2002 was when Carolyn Reynolds and Tony Wood took over. 2000-2001 had seen quite a bit of upheaval, as there were some "gritty" and not all that well told stories on subjects like rape and cervical cancer which offended some viewers, and even some of the actors. The show had become increasingly dark. 1999-2000 had an extremely harrowing storyline where many of the twentysomething characters were blackmailed and terrorized by a drug dealer who had already murdered one or two characters, and he was only stopped when one of their fathers beat him to death. This was also the time that Sarah Louise Platt had a baby at age 13 or 14.

2002-2004 was a big era for the show. Richard Hillman psychokiller saga, Todd Grimshaw coming out, Mad Maya's reign of terror against Dev and Sunita, the blood feud between Karen Macdonald and Tracy Barlow, Peter Barlow as bigamist.

Toups has some January 2008 credits listing Trina so she must have joined the show not all that long ago. She may have joined with Carolyn and Tony. I think they also left Corrie around 2004.

The police seem to just think arresting random people is the way to get results. That and aimlessly wandering around the Square. Like a lot of Santer stories, the scenes repeat and repeat.

That's a good choice if you wanted to axe an entire family, but I am surprised they'd get rid of Josh. He's young and still had so much to give. I thought he was working well in the halls. It'll be interesting to see what happens there. Since those characters don't have many family connections they could all go. I'd predict now that the Valentine's are all gone. Amy is gone and so is Ste. I wonder if Tony and Dom will survive. I don't think Loretta will.

There's no reason to get rid of Tony or Ste, if you ask me. Ste is a very complex character played by a good actor, and he can go anywhere. Tony is the last original cast member left and while the character has been drifting and depressing for a few years now, he can still be salvaged and put into more of a mentor role.

I think the worst of the Valentines are Sasha and Calvin. I would axe Sasha and keep Lauren and Leo, and bring back Valerie.

If it were me I would get rid of Anita, Ravi, Elliot (Garnon Davies is a wonderful actor but there is nowhere left for this character), Archie, Sasha, Loretta, Spencer, India, Carmel, and a few more teens. After that it would be time to see if there is story for Dom, Gilly, Jake, or Nancy. I assume Kris is leaving next year.

I would write heavily for Malachy, Darren, Cindy, Steph, and give Myra a big story again.

Guess who's coming back?

"YOU AIN'T GOING BACK TO EASTENDERS!!"

"YES I AM!"

What a terrible move, IMO. I loved all the Ashworths. I guess this means Josh and Amy won't be reunited.

I wonder how much longer Amy will be around. Everyone in her life is gone, except Ste, and they might turn him bad again.

I do think there were a lot of people who could have been fired before the Ashworths. I almost wonder if Marquess has been told not to get rid of most of the teens. I hope not, there are a lot of dead weight teens on the show now.

I also hope they surprise people and don't give the Dog in the Pond back to the Osbornes. After the endless weeping, screaming, and misery of their storylines in that place in 2008, I have absolutely no desire to ever see them there again.

Goodbye to the Ashworths. Rhys is staying for now but they don't suggest he will be around a long time.

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/s13/hollyoaks/news/a200599/new-hollyoaks-producer-axes-three.html

I will miss Jim Millea, he's a very underrated actor.

I think the grimness and gloom are part of its identity. They always have been. The writers often exaggerate, give shock value and ultimately hollow stunts the front row seats, which is when it becomes too much.

It's not the grimness (compared to some earlier years it's not very grim) I mind as much as the laziness, repetition, lack of followthrough, poor plotting. So many stories of the past few years have had rushed starts and then long gaps where nothing happens. Syed/Christian, which should have been about a man caught between his faith and the man he loves, but instead comes across as a whiny brat throwing tantrums and making everyone miserable, all over some guy he has no believable connection with. Lucas as killer. I mean this story should be incredibly grim, yet instead it's just dull. Then you have stuff like Janine running Danielle over, which ended up with nothing more than Ronnie wanting babies and Janine being forgiven in about two episodes. When they have Janine joke about how she killed Danielle, it's supposed to show how wicked she is, but really just shows how poorly written her character has become. Or Danny Mitchell's arrival, where within a few days he was already close to Ronnie and Roxy and working at the pub. Why do they rush? They have so much time to fill up. Or stuff like Tanya burying Max alive and taking up with Jack, both of which damaged her character where she still hasn't recovered. It was supposed to all be a big shock, but if an event has no real meaning or impact, there's no shock. The same happened when Lauren ran over Max.

There are some moments where they are better, some individual episodes, and I think some of the stories, like Tony's abuse of Whitney, were strong, even if the aftermath hasn't been great.

If they could work on consistency, plotting, and not focusing so much on getting attention, I think the show would become even better.