DRW50

So many in this country take things for granted, just shrugging and saying well it can't get any worse, or saying they will take sacrifices in the short term for a brighter long term (the delusional Susan Sarandon approach). Many of these people are cheering the plans that some Arab-American groups have to go to each state and urge votes to support a third-party candidate because they want Biden to lose so the party will learn a lesson. (a number of the people in that movement are right wing and Trump supporters, but as always, the dead-end left eats it up)

I've had no use for Ben ever since his return - the human trafficking and him threatening to torture and murder an old woman and make her son watch (and all of this being treated as fun and hot are the big reasons why, along with Bowden having no chemistry with any of the people Ben was meant to care about) - but it has been obvious for a few years now Bowden was going through things. After last year when he ended up getting into it over Walford Web's character rate, I was especially concerned. I feel like they have been phasing Ben out for a while, to the point where I wonder if this is why they finally brought Johnny back. Still, this seems abrupt. I don't really have a problem with Callum, but I won't be surprised if he heads out as well, if not with Ben than later in the year. Ben needs a very long rest as a character. Harry Reid wasn't the greatest actor but he did fit the two sides of Ben and had good chemistry with those in Ben's life. Max Bowden mostly represented many of the fetishes that the newly arrived producer tends to put out in her work. He quickly replayed a number of the same stories she gave that type of sneering, sociopathic "hunk" when she was at Emmerdale. It was very unpleasant to watch.

@Vee @I Am A Swede This may be what they were talking about. Glad Malandra seems to be looking well:

I couldn't remember if he was still on that show by the end. I never got it either. My loathing of the Rafe/Alison pairing pretty much made that a permanent thing.

Linda Henry is not with a morning show, but I don't think she will be back anytime soon. (if it means she can avoid all that cackling, good for her)

I always associate Gaskill with looking too old for his AMC role (I still have no idea why he was cast in that part - he couldn't act and was extremely unlikeable onscreen), so I'm glad he is at least cast in an age-appropriate part and seems to be fine with aging naturally. As for being a soap killer...joking aside, every soap he was on that ended was in its last breaths anyway. And B&B is still around, in name only at least.

2016, which was, unfortunately, slated, leading to a return of episodes like this one - months of bad stories stalled out for the sake of one episode a year that has many viewers who immediately stop watching again.

This is another reason I think the show could do well if it's revived today.

'General Hospital' Temporarily Recasts the Role of Maxie Jones with Nicole Paggi (soapoperanetwork.com)

Seeing Patricia Mauceri in one of those photos made me feel sad. I don't even know what she's been doing since her unpleasant exit from the show.

I'm still pleasantly surprised that the show remembered Laurie after it had ignored so much of its past. I wonder just why that happened. I wish they had also remembered Timmy Faraday.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/elections/lauren-boebert-jumps-to-colorados-4th-cd-in-bid-to-improve-reelection-odds/article_26d119d8-a4db-11ee-86bc-ffa4c977b4e2.html With Trump likely on the ballot to juice turnout, Boobert had a good chance of winning reelection (although she was facing a competitive primary), but the NRCC would have had to spend massive amounts of money on her. Now they have a better chance of keeping her seat, and are likely rid of her, as she's running in a district that is nowhere near hers, going against many other candidates with local ties.

Emmerdale has never been a well-rated soap on Christmas. Corrie hasn't either. EE was the main Christmas Day soap until it bottomed out in recent years (they have recovered somewhat now but still struggle, in quality or ratings).

@slick jones The closing credits, complete with lengthy cast crawl, for January 25, 1982 General Hospital were uploaded early in this video. I think there is at least one I did not see credited for GH (Paul Rossilli) but my searching skills suck so I know I may be wrong.

Many on the left love to sneer at the idea that this election is the most important, they say it's said every four years, but I do think many of these entitlements will be on the chopping block depending on 2024.

I hate Luke, I always have, but I do think he should be there, and however I feel about Tony, he was supposedly one of the only reasons Jackie was not fired from GH (and Bobbie turned into a lunatic who would have been killed off, IIRC) in the early '00s.

The story of the Smothers Brothers and how Tom was essentially radicalized (by network TV standards, anyway) by their younger, hipper writers and by the way CBS treated them is a fascinating one. I have watched some of that material in the last few years, and while the political content is mild today (although still more than you'd get in many corporate quarters), what I took away was just how much fun it was to see their act and how well most of the material has aged. I suppose that's why they hung on in the public eye for quite a few years in spite of such a scarring and high-profile firing. Here's an interview they did last year, with, fittingly, CBS.

For some reason when I clicked on this thread it took me back to 2015. I saw mention of Cynthia kicking Porsha in the stomach and thought, "Again??"

So sad. Lee Sun-kyun Dead: Parasite Actor Was 48 – The Hollywood Reporter

@slick jones Thanks. This thread is leaving a real legacy for so many actors, and those who will never know them otherwise.

Carolyn Culliton sometimes replies to an AW "on this day" account. Here are her thoughts on the exit of Fred J Scollay (Charlie Hobson). I'll post them as text too as Twitter will be lucky to be around by this time next year (as most of us will, admittedly). She confirms in a second tweet that he was fired and she didn't know why. On his last day in the studio, Fred came into the production office and sadly said, “I finally found out who you have to [!@#$%^&*] to get off this show …Ada”. We all said we were sorry to see him go.

@Vee Now that you mention it, it is impressive how much they manage to move over without any real awkwardness. The use of flashbacks with Nicole and Adam in particular does a lot to help avoid potential stiltedness. (and I'm glad they did them as this is presumably the only reason those scenes now exist) Phoebe is murdered the next year. I am not sure what happens with Danny and Tracy. Kevin seems like such a tragic character, who tried to do the right thing, repeatedly, and paid for it with his life. Most of that material being lost makes it more difficult to understand the levels of Geraldine's loathing of Raven, because even though Raven is betraying Logan (her replacement replacement son), her behavior isn't as horrible as it seemed to be with how she had treated Kevin. I wonder if Slesar decided to tone down the character by that point or if it just reads worse on the page than it played out onscreen. I wish more of Kevin was around as he has that '70s offbeat quality for leading men that I appreciate.

I can respect that. To be honest, any shame that I think my family would have felt with what GL had become had already happened. For me, anything after the decision to claim Ben was sexually abused and being sexually abused made him a serial killer was just not going to reach such a low...although goodness knows they tried with that incest-loving hambone Jonathan, Cassie's kid who electrified his father and got lots of closeups looking pouty to make sure we knew he was evil, and so on.

I think most actors would rather have the job. I don't really believe there was a huge industry stigma attached to Peapack. To most people, GL was a show their mother or grandmother watched, and not something still on the air in 2009. I don't hear Murray Bartlett going around saying that filming on the cheap for a year hurt his career.

Thanks @Vee .