DRW50

Yes. For some reason I thought Iris and Russ interacted around this point, but I don't remember if Robert did.

That's a difficult question, because I think the show rebuilt itself several times. For me the best seasons were 3-7, and nothing is ever the same after Laura is killed off and Mack , Val, Gary, and Karen also become significantly more one-dimensional as characters. The show as a whole becomes more one-dimensional. They also start running into dangerous territory with Abby, but fortunately Donna Mills took care of that and left. There are still good moments in that period, but it's a different show...still a show that I found watchable, and fortunately I was able to accept Paige (if I couldn't have I just would not have been able to make it as a viewer anymore). Some of the new characters, even if they are more typical '80s gloss and lack the depth of someone in the early years, keep me involved (Frank, Pat, Linda, Anne, Paige, even go-nowhere characters like Paula). Aside from some pet peeves of mine (anything involving baby Meg, anything involving Olivia whining, anything involving DIRTY COP DIRTY COP DIRTY COP), I'm able to be involved in stories, even if I don't really like the stories very much for themselves. There are some fun interactions, sharp dialogue, etc. I think the show plugs along in that vein until around season 12, which is a much stronger year for me, maybe the best since season 7. The season 12 finale and the whole feel of season 13 is just too much, too much for the show to ever recover from. I know a lot of people enjoy the back of 13. I might try it again someday, but I'm in no rush. 14 I sort of half-watched, and I'm not in much rush there either.

@Vee Thanks as always for your writeups, which always add such detail with the behind the scenes info and casting and directing discussion (I had no idea poor Judith Barsi was on Knots). Learning about the turnover and meddling helps me to understand why this period begins to have story I found to be very predictable and hollow, no matter how well-crafted, like Joshua. The real meat is in the complex central characters like Abby, Greg, or in these years, Gary. I never quite saw the Verna story as a masterpiece either. I think it works best as a breather for Val that reminds you of her trauma in a way beyond what we usually got with her.

Logically, I know you're all in the right, and I do think Brian would have made more sense in this role (if Paul Stevens had still been alive), but I was just glad to see someone in Iris' corner, and I thought Nic Coster and Carmen Duncan worked well together.

Don't forget rape is sexy and it's great fun seeing camp gay men sexually harassing/assaulting other men. Makes you wonder even more what happened to make him vanish from the show so abruptly. I guess he just quit at the last minute to try fame elsewhere.

The AW opening is just so generic for me, yet also, for all the talk at the time of how dated the previous opening was, feels far more dated to me. The other problem is the arrogance of putting an opening she should have known the show would not have the budget to keep updating, which meant the whole thing was about 3 seconds long by the time the show ended. Justine only lasted to about early 1996. I think Victoria Wyndham never really knew what to do with the character, which is why she was so defensive about her, but the character did go fully off the boil under JFP, with the hook and other nonsense. I remember Eddie Drueding saying that every piece of brand new hospital equipment should have had a tag with the name of the actor who had been fired to pay for it.

Haven't they done this story with Kayla multiple times now in recent years?

I would say that's something Carly would do, but I doubt the writing is character-based. (does Joss even have a character?)

This is about as sad a victory lap tweet as you can find. May you and a drummed out of office Kevin work together on his autobiography very, very soon.

One last laugh for the night, via another media darling, before the wall-to-wall coronations for that soul-selling dumbass begin.

Matt Gaetz is about as scummy as you can get, but seeing him continue to publicly humiliate McCarthy before inevitably caving in amuses me, even if it shouldn't. One of the reasons is because I was reading Jake Sherman's feed, and Sherman was gossiping and giggling over every second of this vote. You could tell he was in absolute heaven, going on and on about the genius of McCarthy's special friend Pat McHenry and what a wonderful team they are. Then as soon as Gaetz voted present, the purple prose stopped immediately.

Brian Fitzpatrick, another so-called "moderate" who runs the worthless "Problem Solvers" caucus (AKA get me on TV caucus) with Josh Gotthmeier, has already said he's voting for it and that it's going to pass. I wouldn't be surprised if the above is just another of their tricks to hide that they all support the same death of this country.

They're full of [!@#$%^&*]. They will be too scared to do anything out of turn. They will just shrug and say it's Biden's fault. They also know, as we see here, Republican enablers like Jake Tapper will support them all the way.

This looks and feels about ten years out of date, and stars people who have already flopped on other reality shows and in the public eye, like Todrick. So many interesting programs are never let on the air, or are canceled quickly, while we're left with these drags that look like Soapnet productions.

I think we feel that way, but so many on the left and right are eating up the points that this was such an incredible deal, why didn't the Squad do the same, look at how much they get done on the right because they are unafraid and unbought. Then the Beltway is there to shore up McCarthy, their hero and survivor. They flood the zone, and it works for too many.

In this case I was talking more about the pain they can bring, with full media support, before voters go back to the polls, by stopping social security, welfare, etc. I'm not really sure about 2024. The Senate is a brutal map, and I'm hesitant about Biden running against someone who isn't Trump, who is a shiny new toy and a media darling like Ron DeSantis (even if DeSantis talks like a British actor trying to play a gay man from Minnesota), or Glenn Youngkin, who don't have all of Trump's baggage. I also remember how the Republicans crashed the economy in 2013 with the shutdown and still won big in 2014. There are times when the public surprises me, like 2022, but even then, the games Republicans played to rig the House still worked. It's going to take massive turnout against all odds, message fine-tuning, beating voting suppression and smears, and against a media that will do anything and everything to have GOP domination at all levels. It could happen, we can't give up, but after so many losses when we needed wins, it's hard to ever expect anything else. Seeing McCarthy treated as a god by the press after he lost 13 votes just reinforces that for me.

This is pathetic beyond belief, even for a media ecosystem that wept over the glories of Scott Walker and Tim Pawlenty. They have invested so much in this man, and their book deals and party invites, they will never let him go.

The worst part is going to be the debt limit, where they will do their best to starve out and gut what is left of the safety net, with the media by their side all the way making sure to blame Democrats for the pain. I guess at least we aren't in the era anymore where Democrats might have gone along with severe cuts. As I've seen a few people say, it seems very convenient that all this drama is happening on the anniversary of 1/6. What a surprise that the ever-complicit media is going along with this blindly rather than questioning the GOP's obvious distraction attempts.

@Vee @SFK An interview with Kate O'Mara promoting Triangle, a soap opera at sea which was heavily hyped by the BBC at the time and later on seen as a dismal failure.

Lisa Rinna really did torch a reputation she'd built up over 25 years, and for what. It's sad. I can't even really watch her old stuff after what I've seen of her on social media in the last few years, let alone the show. I guess she did me a favor by showing her true self.

What a surprise.

@Vee I would agree about Spencer and Trina. It's especially glaring with the "hot" Joss and Dex scene they pushed on viewers.