DRW50

It looks like Claire's exit is going to be good. Or I hope so anyway.

Y&RWT, your favorite is on the way back for a visit. http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/tv/2011/wk3/fri.shtml#fri_eastenders

Thanks for expanding. Why did Marienhof fire so many cast members? Did they think the older actors were nothing compared to new or cheaper faces? Is Marienhof the show with the gay doctor? I can't remember. I thought I'd read that there weren't a lot of new soaps being made in Germany. I'm glad to hear otherwise. VL as a show confuses me. Christian and Olli are so popular, yet the show is scared to do anything with them. Even turning them both straight would probably get more interest than their stories over the last few years. Meanwhile you have this Rebecca who doesn't seem popular yet the show keeps pushing her at people, even having her become a lesbian overnight.

Watched the King of Hearts thing. I enjoyed the scenes with Myra and Kathleen. I don't like Kathleen but she's believable as a McQueen, one of the darker of the bunch (I'd love to see her with Nana). Myra had some great lines, the best being when she dragged Kathleen out of the police station ("she weighs more than me!") and then when Rhys said "ASAP" and she said, "are you calling me a sap?" Nicole Barber Lane makes the silliest stuff work. Was it wrong that by the end I was hoping Jacqui would get together with Danny Houston? Once you get past the accent which reminds me of the worst of Eastenders "gangster" stories, he seemed to respect Jacqui by the end, as he offered her the money with no strings attached. Meanwhile, Rhys called her a prostitute twice and immediately had unprotected sex with another woman. I don't see any chemistry between Jacqui and Rhys. The body language and the reactions aren't of people who are in love. When Rhys called her a slut and she left, hurt, he barely flinched. He should have been devastated at what he'd said. Andy Moss is a good actor but you wouldn't really know it from here. A lot of face-pulling passed off as acting. And Gilly -- shoehorning his rage issues into this story was a bit of a strange choice. Since they needed some pointless sex, I would rather have seen him with the woman who had the briefcase. From past episodes, Anthony Quinlan has the arse for a late night special. Does anyone else wonder if they only had that Cheryl/Rhys sex scene because someone had some Russ Meyer fetish about Cheryl's breasts? You can't have that head-in-cleavage shot in the regular timeslot. Why did Cheryl not remember she set Rhys and Jacqui up in the first place? I did not like that bad club music overpowering scenes in the first half. The best part for me was Clare Cooper's performance, especially her scene with Carmel, which I LOVED, even with Carmel's Rickie Lee Jones beret. It was beautiful, especially when Carmel told Jacqui she would be giving her last bit of dignity away, and Jacqui asked what Carmel would have done to save Calvin. Great stuff. It reminded me of when the McQueens first started on the show, and how special they were. They still work well together, especially when Bart isn't around.

That's a shame. Will you miss the show? Are soaps on the way out in Germany?

I'm glad I don't go to the NBC boards I think some of them make good points and aren't afraid to criticize down spots, and one or two have even defended Bryan Kirkwood in the weird witch hunt against him there, but I think that the show just gets way too much leeway for being such a mess. I guess it depends on how much you care about Brendan. If you love him then apparently you love the show. What I really don't get is how do you bring on 3 new families and then know very little about what to do with most of them storywise. Not to mention the mess of the new students -- they wrote out Charlotte and Dave just for these ciphers who are barely around? It's all style over substance, but there isn't a whole lot of style. At least they are giving Jacqui more to do, which is nice, but I could think of better for her. I guess I should be grateful she's not stuck in the baby hell she was for most of 2007-2009.

Oh I will probably watch the episode -- I have been trying to get back into the show. It's just not all that easy, because I find the whole thing so sleazy and hollow. I hear such huge hype for the show from places like DS but I'm not connecting to it. I'm still so annoyed about Steph, and about the awful new characters. And the show seems to be made up as it goes along.

Geez the shots of his chest and stomach are very hot.

I don't know how to do any of that. I haven't even seen it yet. I hope it's worth it, as the show has toned down the nudity in recent years. I would care about Carl Costello if he got naked. It reminds me of when Andy Moss was asked about an embarrassing moment and he mentioned the first late night special he was in, where he and Gilly were in their underwear, with closeups of their crotches. I wonder what he'd say about this one...

Reading about the Hollyoaks King of Hearts thing I'm not sure if I'll watch. On the one hand, On the bad side,

The House is voting on the standalone repeal at the moment. The Senate is where the problem will be, and where this would take a lot of work to actually pass. SLDN is tweeting on the vote. I have to laugh at the far right Congressman who says that nations who have openly gay soldiers are crumbling -- those are most of our allies. http://twitter.com/FreedomToServe And here's the Marine commander basically saying that, I don't know, soldiers will lose their legs if they serve with openly gay soldiers? http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j2aGMFXuk0DUVjYib3Fs7g9IMCQA?docId=CNG.9d86bd1b9e1dcce9c1b3a0448d6af28b.a21

Paul Marquess teasers. http://www.e4.com/blog/hollyoaks/post/gg7ipagdwlnbo7ajzmx62a/view.e4

I've wanted to see this ever since I read about it - I remember the photo of Stanley and Lesley in his penthouse of whatever. I always thought it was odd that Lesley was taken from being in the middle of Bauer stories to suddenly marrying this wealthy man who was so evil. And then his relationships with his kids, those must have been interesting (especially the one with Holly). I also never understood how Barbara, who saw herself as such a moral crusader, tolerated being with him for so long. Unless Barbara was different back then. So at the time did GL have more of a balck cast than they later on? I didn't realize that Cole was on the show for 2-3 years. IMDB lists her run as ending in 1971 but she must have been on through at least some of 1972. I wonder why GL had this whole idea of these moguls and their black mistresses, which is such a touchy, volatile issue, but never directly confronted it.

The rest of the article.

Rosetta Lenoire? I really wish I could see this story. I never knew Stanley Norris was involved in a relationship with Rosetta Lenoira. I thought it was just Lesley. Who was writing the show at this time? I think Rittenburg was still producer?

Really? Wow. I'm surprised GL would tell an interracial story at that time -- even later on they often seemed reluctant to do so. Who played her mother?

December 1972 TV Dawn to Dusk (Ideal Publishing). Do any of you know more about Olivia Cole's role on the show? I know her more from her later appearances in things like Roots and Backstairs at the White House. I didn't know she was on GL. I'm surprised a soap magazine at this time would feature an interracial couple.

May 1976 TV Dawn to Dusk (Ideal Publishing Corp)

Ilene Kristen interview from August 3, 1982 Digest (Network Publishing Corporation).

I really like Glynis Barber - have ever since her Blake's 7 days. I don't care for the Kate Gosselin hair in the interview but I like how much she cares about her character. I could do without the idea of yet another attractive woman lusting after Phil. It's fascinating to me how many have written the new Ben off immediately because he's not going around doing musical theater. Santer really wrecked that character by writing him as a bad joke, and it is continuing even now that Ben is gone. Oh it's so interesting if Phil has a camp son. You'd think it might be, but after one or two ha ha moments, it became as dull as anything else which involves Phil. I know what you mean. I don't think it's meant to be misogynistic, I think it's just some attempt at a mystery, but I wish they could have done something else.

I'm sorry about your mother. I hope my comment didn't sound too flip. I don't know if you're a fan of Olivia Cole, but one of the magazines from around this time also had some photos and an interview of her. I'm going to post it in the GL thread. I never even knew she was on a soap.