DRW50

Seeing Harris Faulkner trend the last few nights for shameless propaganda on Faux News, I watched a clip or two, and she is better at selling it than Tucker, Hannity, Watters, and so on. Yet she's never going to be accepted by that fanbase, for two reasons.

Thanks, @Vee . I'd heard about this and wondered what Ryan would have to say, as SNL is very difficult to write about, which you can tell from the piece (and she says at one point). It's simultaneously open and about as walled off as you can get. I'd read most of her various quotes before, but I do wonder how someone who isn't as trapped in the show's tendrils must feel. The Horatio Sanz story was heinous, and was one of the times where I finally saw just how much power Lorne (and NBC and their owners) have to be able to suppress it as much as they did. I don't really believe there is an aw shucks persona of Lorne Michaels - he went on TV for years in his expensive suits, sipping champagne and being imperious. If anything I think he projects an image of power that was not always there (due to the terrible culture he'd gotten SNL into by the mid-90s, and various finger-in-every-pie men who took over at NBC, he was weakened for most of the mid/late '90s and through a good chunk of the '00s). There's a whole mythology of how challenging he is which amounts to saying he can't stop playing mind games. I'll also say Seth Simons, who is right about much of comedy culture and SNL, is a very erratic figure, as I used to read his Twitter before he put it on private. I never could take him as seriously afterward. I believe the Danitra Vance characters she refers to were characters Danitra brought with her to the show, although I'm not 100%. I assume the rest of the SNL material in there talks about Trump, as Ryan was one of the critics (rightfully so) most disgusted with him being booked. I like her comparison to Doctor Who. In both cases I often think the narratives of the show, all the generations of history, compel me more than the material itself, with some glorious exceptions (glorious more in the case of Doctor Who - SNL never really hit those heights). It's also one of those shows you have to start when you're young to care about, which is one of the reasons why, although I would like to see how a fully Lorne-free SNL would be, I am expecting it to go off within the next year or two once Lorne is gone from NBC (Doctor Who has shown more of an ability to regenerate [no pun intended] so I am hoping that can keep chugging along).

The People's Party also has or had ties to Jimmy Dore, the alleged comedian who left the allegedly progressive Young Turks (full of some of the worst voices and most vapid voices out there, past and present) and now rants and raves 24/7 about vaccines, Ukraine, trans people, and other topics beloved by the far left and far right. The man he's yukking with here is a pig who used to write for Amy Schumer until his various ugly comments led even her to move on.

West wrote a glowing op-ed about DeSantis earlier this year, and praised "Brother Trump" in the past. Yet many still seem to think he's on their side.

As long as Valentini still won't give up on Howarth and Easton, bigger male names are probably still unlikely. I was never a big Jack fan, but I'm glad AMC's memory is still being kept alive.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/george-riddle-dead-onion-news-network-fantasticks-1235506861/ This one is, sadly, all too prescient.

I thought the whole ugly episode with JR exposing that his girlfriend died during a botched abortion was reason enough, although probably not for so many years (unfortunately I thought most of the writing lost any dimension after a few seasons anyway).

Oh that liberal media. Amazing how many people are lining up to do anything for such a repulsive and deeply uncharismatic man.

Didn't he also have a terrible relationship with Potter? Really terrible? I know Potter was long gone by then but it probably wasn't a happy memory for him.

Freddie is an utterly pointless character, especially with his mother not returning anytime soon. Bobby Brazier is very likeable, but similar to the rest of EE these days, I just feel no connection.

I noticed that Todd was more confrontational with Republicans in recent months. I wonder if that is why he is going, or if he knew he was on the way out and stopped caring.

That was lovely @Khan

I was surprised when I saw just how many of my favorite songs she had co-written. Her songs have a special ability to put you right in the place of the story, no matter how simple it may be. The emotions live right through you. "Make Your Own Kind of Music," "Here You Come Again," "He's So Shy," and "Uptown" may seem different on first listen, but all of them share that same heartbeat. Even "Somewhere Out There," I remember as one of those songs that moved me so much when I was a kid.

@Vee That makes me laugh. The part where Licht bitches about Don Lemon's clothing is very Succession (the Tom character), and I can picture that dinner party from hell too. Zucker, odious as he was, did seem to know how to grease palms. Licht just seems to be there to turn the network into right wing gruel, and still can't even do that as successfully as intended. I read that some other Zaslav flunky has been assigned to CNN now alongside Licht.

Writers Strike: Shut-It-Down Strategy Is Effective, Execs Concede – The Hollywood Reporter

Yet she still needed that woman on her lousy show...

Giddens being a hack isn't much of a surprise, but this is also down to Ron's contempt for the genre, as shown with his OLTL finish and the decision to end on bad soap parodies. Something also feels wrong in seeing a "catfight" where a 75 year old woman (no matter how good she may look) is trying her best not to be injured. I remember when Soap Opera Weekly criticized ATWT for an end credit photo with Nancy Hughes wearing a clown nose. What a state the soap world is in now when a matriarch, a great-grandmother, is trotted out for such degrading camp.

Another example of Ron Carlivati only seeing soaps as a bad joke from the '80s. Why does someone who has so little respect for them earn a living in them?

I loved Kim on ILC and enjoyed her on Living Single, so I'm just happy she's getting a check. Is she good? Probably not...but neither is most of the cast, so I won't discriminate.