DRW50

I can never vote for Romney because of the dog thing (that and the horrible pandering). http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1638065,00.html

If she beats on Star then Barbara Walters might give Nene some work on The View.

Thanks for both of your answers. In one 83 SOD I have there's a review of the show by Genovese. Have you seen that (or is it at that Capitol site)? If so I won't scan it.

Barbour would probably just hire a lot of lobbyists (although Obama isn't far off from doing that). Huckabee does seem to be a wild card. Pawlenty and Romney both do seem likely to get the nomination. Pawlenty just relies on anti-gay politicking again and again and again, along with other blatant pandering.

I hate this type of thing. I know someone who isn't going to vote for Obama again because of this. But the whole let's kick the poor type of move will probably get him more votes than it loses. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_heating_aid

SFK was there ever anything on the show about Trey being in love with Clarissa? I was looking in a Digest from around late 82 or mid 83 and they said that the original writers were going and that many of their stories might be changed, and one new story being suggested was Trey having feelings for Clarissa.

Cheryl Fergison interview. http://www.walfordweb.co.uk/item.php?id=2820

IMDB has become a mess in recent years, because it's so tough to correct. I thought Bradley was killed off in 1984, I keep forgetting he was still alive. Was he also on ATWT then as Angel's father?

Is that Nancy Pinkerton? I never knew they redid flashbacks of Beth hitting Bradley. Did they bring the actor back for that?

It's a very lazy, stupid decision. He has a lot of charisma and talent. The show is awash in so many shockingly bad actors, especially those cast in the last year, and yet they casually write him off.

That's the third Congressman from New York in 3 years to resign because of a sex scandal.

World's fastest resignation? Christopher Lee, Congressman from upstate New York, resigns after it was learned that he tried to get a woman on Craiglist (he's married with kids). I guess this is tame by modern standards (I'm sure his wife wouldn't agree!). He has a pretty good body...too bad he didn't put it to better use and just do one of those "not hideously unattractive men of Congress" charity calendars. http://gawker.com/#!5755071/married-gop-congressman-sent-sexy-pictures-to-craigslist-babe

I just flat out loved that last scene with Kat and Alfie. Finally, after years and years of stagnation and stageiness and way too much mythologizing, the Vic has a live wire again. I was so hooked when Alfie yelled "SO DID I!" and at Kat's gasp of pain when Alfie blamed her for the baby's death. I watched that scene three or four times. I don't think the people at EE now "get" Kat, which is sad, because she's very special, but they do seem to know how to write very well for Alfie, and along with Max, he is probably the most complicated and interesting male character on the show at the moment. No matter how flawed some moments are I am still more drawn into the current Eastenders than I have been in a long time because it has that jagged edge again, the lack of self-reverence which acts as some sort of veneer, and while this can sometimes be awful, sometimes it can be absolutely brilliant. That last scene reminded me so much of Julia Smith's Eastenders -- I can see Angie downing her drink and laughing/jeering/crying right along with Kat and Alfie.

Did any of you mention the rumors of Heidi Montag becoming a Housewife?

Is there any real reason to keep OC around? I watched the first few episodes and I thought they were very stilted and generic and fake (the husband and wife, all the frozen faced blondes terrorizing their kids). Did the show pick up from then?

I also have to say how entertaining some of the "please he can't go back to Hollyoaks that would ruin JP/Craig forever" stuff is. I have loved some soap couples, although it seems like a long time ago now, so I guess I can understand that, but to me that dud reunion and the way Craig behaved during the affair were more damaging than any offscreen breakup could be. I don't know if James Sutton would even go back to Hollyoaks if asked, although I doubt they will ask him. I wouldn't mind seeing the old, fun JP again, with the twinkle in his eye, especially if he replaces Bart, the world's oldest teenager who has ZERO connection with the McQueens, but considering Mandy's disastrous and Lee's forgettable return, it might not be for the best. I do hope he goes on something which involves nudity...

This was predicted for a while, and the show has never really used Sutton. I think that Blyth was happy to have him because he was a Hollyoaks name - and I do think this probably did help bring new and younger viewers to Emmerdale - but that he had no idea what to do with Ryan. All logical stories for Ryan ended when they killed Mark off. I don't believe that it is down to wooden acting, that's not exactly tough to find in starring roles on any soap. I think they just lost all momentum for this story a long time ago. I wonder how much longer Declan will be around. They rewrote his personality to bring in his family, a forgettable daughter and a horrible wife and father. None of them serve any purpose other than to point out that Home Farm has become a dinosaur. I struggled to emotionally connect with Emmerdale during Blyth's time as producer and I think that now the bottom has fallen out because the stories he produced - which generally had good moments in the short term but no real long-term planning - have faded, with nothing to replace them. I really would love to know the idea behind the Katie and the evil cop storyline. Everything about it has baffled me. Giving such a story to mediocre actors, making it so obvious, killing off core characters and then shrugging at their deaths, and finishing with what will probably be a whimper. How many times has Katie had this story and I still don't buy it.

I think that Carol would have worked as a reminder of Tom's past and as a contrast to Margo. Like the story with Taylor and Tom while Margo was with Hal. Taylor was so dull and yet she was supposed to be a vixen. Wouldn't it have made more sense if Tom had had to help Carol and been reminded of his past? This would have also been a good way to help introduce Scott Holmes to viewers. Or later on, when they had the difficult transition while Ellen Dolan was gone and Tom ended up quasi-flirting or whatever with Dawn, which was an awkward story. Carol might have fit in there.

I didn't mind San Cristobel for the first year or two - I think where I started to get tired of it was when they wasted Tim Adams as Rob Layne, and for whatever reason, I really loathed the stuff the Labines did with Beth as Edmund's thrall (which wasted the genuine chemistry BC and DAM shared), Cassie losing her late term baby, etc. I sort of felt like, at the time at least, that Wright did manage to play a slightly trashy character, in how she was styled (mainly her hair) and in how other people treated her. For instance there was always the sense that Josh saw her as unworthy. I imagine they did plan for a trashier character, what with the initial plan to have Zimmer play dual roles, and all the stripping, but as others mentioned I'm not sure how trashy anything would get on the bright white GL of the Rauch era. I think at the time I was still so annoyed by the damage Dinah had inflicted on many of my favorite characters that I was happy to see her move into the bitch role, and I thought Moniz, who was such an unsympathetic and affected actress, suited the crazy bitch role very well.

For a blast from the past, 1 of 9 videos featuring Shane McGann, who played the patriarch of the doomed Reynolds family. I didn't know he was Paul McCann's brother. They were even in some early 80s pop band. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmonBAnGUz0