DRW50

The payoff is so they can be patted on the back for yet another "issue-based" storyline. It's all lazy, cheap material, poorly developed and utterly predictable - of course as his father was EVIL EVIL EVIL, he must be too.

Absolutely Rose Street is a very...of the era Sega 32X infomercial under the guise of a "hip" teen drama/comedy. The cast is not credited. I was trying to figure out if one of the guys (Max) is Ryan Francis (Georgie's son Trevor on Sisters). Can anyone tell me what they think?

Thanks for tagging me @slick jones

I didn't really mind the gorilla at the end either. They could have made better choices (I still don't know why they didn't have Sam Groom back as Russ instead of a minister) but I thought it was OK. I don't think it besmirched AW.

I don't remember a lot of him - I mainly remember him being involved in Kit's dramas. The whole family was dull. The only one who was interesting to me was Amy - her relationship with Jerry, her bitching sessions with Cecile about Pat, etc.

https://www.comicsbeat.com/multiple-women-accuse-cartoonist-ed-piskor-of-grooming-and-misconduct/

Hat tip to @Soapsuds Keith Coulouris auditioned for Chris Hughes on ATWT (that went to Ben Jorgensen).

Thanks @Soapsuds . It's crazy that he was even in consideration for Chris Hughes. I'm glad he had a good experience, and I don't blame him for laughing at the scripts.

What a huge joke, all around.

That's part of it, and also approval ratings, which just collapsed around late 2021 and never recovered. Even for such polarized times they feel low to me compared to his actual record. I can see why some people would break with him over Gaza (although many of the people who have been most vocal never supported him anyway, as shown with the leaders of the "Trump wouldn't be so bad" leftist movement in Michigan), but this happened before then. There's just a level of complete detachment that does make me uneasy about some voters who do hate Trump being tempted to stay home or throw away their vote. Hopefully the polls will be wrong again, as they were in 2022, and Trump won't overperform the way he did in 2016 and 2020.

I talked a bit about this in the media thread. I have long had my doubts of anything on MSNBC being liberal. I think it's all just a pushback game. I saw that RFK Jr did an interview with NYT where he went out of his way to trash them as being in the tank for Biden. That is very much BS, as they've gone out of their way to cause him to lose this year alone. Yet when they hear these accusations, they will work even harder to prove they are not supporting him. The same goes for MSNBC, which still gets that tag even after day after day of Kornacki, Katy Tur, Andrea Mitchell, etc. I do agree with you about polls to a certain extent, but one of the things that really hurts with Biden getting any improvement on certain issues is many seem to always believe the worst of him, trained by nihilism of social media and by his not fitting what they want to worship the way they worshiped Bernie (before they also turned against him). I don't really know how much social media these days is an indicator, but I also feel like some younger people have become more right wing and socially conservative and bigoted. So when I see polls talking about increasing support for Trump among younger people, or among minority groups, it doesn't feel off to me, but the margins do feel too high. I guess it depends on how much I can put my trust in the voters at large not being dumb enough to fall for the RFK Jr stunt, or in forgetting how much damage Trump did. And it's hard to do that. because Trump and the whole cult surrounding him have been chugging along for 8 years now (and so much of that cult was already building before he ever went down that escalator).

I've never seen anything like it. Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher are very right wing figures yet this no longer matters because now it's all about being a MAGA stunt queen. They both ended up leaving in a way that knocks the House GOP in the chops. I look at polls out today like the one claiming that Trump is leading by 8% in Michigan or all the polls about how well he is doing with minority voters or young voters, and even as I want to think the polls aren't reliable, I still feel like there is such a disconnect with the reality of the GOP and what the public sees them as being. Helped by a media that is more in bed with them than ever.

1999 is also a period which goes for long stretches without a headwriter. There were claims JFP was just happily headwriting the show herself. Then ABC moved Megan McTavish over. There was actually a great deal of negative attention in the soap magazines to the changes in Becky Lee, which probably shows the popularity of the character in spite of her decade away. I have sometimes wondered if that's the reason the story was junked, although there were probably about six reasons. At least she was written more like her normal self when she was back on briefly when Bo was doing his Weekend at Drew's routine. The changes to Rachel were horrific and degrading. The material she got under Sandra P Grant felt sadistic and, at times, outright racist. Sandra was better served singing karaoke on a Bruce McCulloch SNL pre-tape a few years earlier than she was by her OLTL run.

I can definitely see Minnie as potentially filling the role Sadie could have had. It's interesting how much better the young love elements of Loving were (especially the Cooper/Ally/Casey/Steffi quad) compared to what happened with AMC in the '90s and early '00s. I'm not sure why - maybe more ABC influence and poorer producers and writers. I wish Agnes could have done more about the hatchet job on Egypt in her '94 return.

That makes a lot of sense. It also helps explain why I was interested in the show. The Loving Murders does feel like something that could have ripped through a P&G town (like AW...repeatedly).

Thanks for letting me know. Still need to try to watch those specials.

A banner day for NBC, which seems to be sinking in the same mire as it was when Matt Lauer practically gave Trump a lap dance.

Thanks. I can see why she wouldn't, as it wasn't one of her successes, and you can't say it changed television the way OLTL or AMC did. I'm not even sure you can find the Nixon trademarks (other than a third generation Rachel and Ada and I suppose some of the gothic elements). Yet it is probably the Nixon show I am most intertwined with (along with OLTL), and honestly now that I think of it, it was Loving that got me into ABC soaps in the first place. So any annoying opinions I've had on GH, AMC or OLTL over the years, people can blame on Loving.

Ugh. I swear I knew that, just half-asleep. Thanks. I do wonder if that is one of the reasons why the show tends to get a lot more talk (on here, anyway) than some of the bigger soaps that were more successful (or at least more clearly defined). You can try to pick the show apart and put it back together. I feel a certain bizarre loyalty to it, maybe because the time I got into the show was at such a rollercoaster (the Loving murders). I suppose that is also why Agnes kept going back. (did she ever say very much about the show in her later years?)

They also just uploaded a number of August 1981 episodes.

Thanks. That makes sense. Something they might have benefited from trying more often rather than where they ended up going with them.

Never mind - I got the dates wrong and Horan was in the July 1989 episode, not the December 1988.

I wonder how quickly those plans were abandoned. I know Stacey does some sleuthing but I remember it with Trucker. I was thinking about your comments on the Johnny Mathis theme songs. They were very true. I prefer the second Mathis theme song to the first, but the lyrics are hilariously terrible. "Look into my eyes...I could use a little LOVING..." "The one thing we should cherish, now and forever, is L-O-V-I-N-G." On paper, Horan was probably the least dynamic Clay, but something about his portrayal always clicks home for me. I especially wish we'd gotten more of his dynamic with Alex. I liked that in that episode, Mantooth and Horan even have variations of the same hairstyle. Probably not intentional, but visually, it works well for where they were in their lives. You're so right about the characters of Jack and Stacey mostly being stripped bare. Most of the longtimers on Loving had that problem, except maybe Ava, and you just had to rely on the actors to keep the scraps together. I noticed Ann in the July 1989 episode. I had forgotten she lasted that far into 1989. She seemed very much like a spare part.

Thanks. I didn't even see any of the Hart to Hart material... I would have rather they just let him leave alive than bring him back to kill him off. Nummi is an interesting presence who would have been better served focusing on his relationships with the Aldens rather than the not especially interesting drama with Jack and Stacey.