DRW50

I never really watched this show, but I thought TR Knight was very cute and I hated the way he was railroaded for basically being the subject of homophobia. He's aged well. I'm glad for fans that they got to see George one last time.

I know this has probably been around before (the clip) but I couldn't find it - it's a bit, in the last moments of this bloopers show from 1988, of Burt Reynolds and the producers playing a prank on Tom Kennedy. This has a moment between Tom and Burt that, frankly, I'm shocked made the air (if it did).

I think they had Rick dancing by himself, which Michael O'Leary made fun of in an interview over how pathetic it was. I didn't actually mind the wedding, but I can see why the actors would think it was ludicrous. I remember this was the peak of the "Queenie" and Hawk comic relief saga, which was NOT true to Alex, but Marj Dusay managed to make fun. That period with Hawk was probably the first time I began to like her a little more as Alex, oddly enough. The last thing Rick Hearst did was some kind of mini-plane crash with Lucy and Alan-Michael, which I don't remember the point of. They also recreated flashbacks of Hearst's Alan-Michael and Philip with Alan-Michael styled like a preppy nightmare (tennis outfit and all) to try to retcon them as having a bad relationship at the time, which annoyed some fans as that wasn't the case. If Sonia had stayed they seemed to be trying to go for an Alan-Michael/Lucy/Zachary the angel triangle, but she must have told them she was going, as he moved over to Michelle. I did like that she finally got a scene with Harley before she left. It really irritated me how she was dumped onto the show as a Harley replacement (I think in the very same episode Harley left), and it felt like Harley was erased from the family in those years. Harley's brief return was so well-written. Looking back, I kind of wish that had been the last time we saw her. Thanks. That must have been what I remembered. Considering the most GL could manage at that time was "Q," clearly that wasn't happening. I'm not sure why even as AW and ATWT tried to expand their black canvas in the mid/late '80s, GL would not until finally Gilly worked her way up from a bit part at the end of the decade.

I think someone said there were plans to expand the black Spaulding canvas but it was vetoed by P&G. I can't remember if that was at this time or in 1984. That whole period of GL, that whole last decade, was the epitome of lip service - bringing in tokens and not bothering to do more with them so they could say, "We tried." The only thing of consequence that any of this had was that Victoria Platt and Terrell Tilford are still married today. (it's sad, if not surprising, just how little use the show had for David by the time Monti Sharp left - he was stripped of any purpose or personality [can you really see Monti's David wanting to be a cop?])

Thanks.

I wonder why they replaced her. The wife only lasted a few seasons anyway, didn't she?

David would have made a better Greg, yes, as didn't things just sort of happen and Greg reacted to them? Snapper had a much more complex inner life that David could not have worked with (he tends to just look constipated in moments like that).

I've never understood why they cast Hauser. If I was watching at the time, maybe I would know, but he feels like such an odd choice for Y&R (which cast beautiful people) as well as for the Foster family (who were all troubled on the inside but able to present a more acceptable, polished face to the world). And James Houghton was so incredibly handsome, it's just jarring. Was this down to soaps moving toward the "anti-hero/bad boy" format by 1977 or 1978?

I always loved the night-to-day transition shot even as a kid. That was one of the things, along with relatives visiting from out of town, and getting to see every character react to an event, that made ATWT special to me. I do agree that finding 'new' episodes is preferable at this point (I still need to catch up on the '84 episodes that were put up a year or two ago, if they haven't been taken down), but Marland was there long enough to where eventually the denseness of the material starts to make it seem new again. I'm one of the few who has an easier time watching his last few years over his first few. They just feel more real to me, somehow.

Speaking of Daniel, you probably already know this, but he's on Instagram. He still looks good, just older. He posted a cast photo for Midland Heights a few months ago. https://www.instagram.com/p/CDkLmLCDq-n/ If any of you know how to communicate on Instagram maybe we can get him to do an interview.

Sad. Julia was such a bizarrely written character, but Abby played her with a certain surreal class and absurdity that made the writing more coherent than it probably deserved to be. Susan Sullivan and Jamie Rose left kind comments on Twitter.

To be fair to her, I don't know if anyone could have survived their hairstylist judging by that clip - Doug's hair looks lumpy and misshapen, like Playdoh left behind, while the beautiful Roberta Leighton has been assaulted by a demonic cereal bowl. I'm just shocked that we got to see her. I'm shocked that we got to see a number of those clips. The karate one was fascinating as it has that raw type of feeling which was sort of being phased out of the show by then, with the increasingly ossified Brooks sisters, Jill, etc. And it's such a reminder of how incredibly gorgeous and charismatic Doug Davidson was in those years. The moment where he was too awestruck to speak about his wife was sweet. The writing quality - the quality, period - has declined so much, as shown by the time of those 2003 clips, but I'm glad they didn't try to hide the past to prop up later stuff, and just let the material stand.

Completely incoherent babble from Josh Hawley, someone you will hear a lot over the next 4 years as right-wing sympathizers and faux-populists like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Stoller adore him.

Good pick. Very much so. Poor Judith was wasted on that empty part.

Oh that liberal media. Mrs. Alan Greenspan is as useless as ever.

Sad to hear that. Julia was one of those characters FC never seemed to know what to do with, but Abby Dalton did what she could.

Caleb and Ellie Snyder were clear attempts at replacing the departing Meg and Holden. (Marland was clever enough to have them tucked away in the family history from the start so there was no Jack Snyder situation)

Not sure if this is what will help, but this goes state by state:

In the rare spot of good news, this pathetic little worm is [!@#$%^&*] off.

Yet another prize Times reporter, last seen humiliating himself for Rudy in the Ukraine "scandal," is big mad.

As a few people pointed out, I did think that was Jeffrey Tambor. That Matt Taibbi continues to be seen as such a brave intellectual makes you wonder why Andrew "milky loads" Sullivan is not given the same treatment, even though they are now the same person. I think some men desperately cling to him for a sense of coolness, which is very sad. Speaking of sad, the New Republic's ongoing identity crisis now includes cringeworthy starfucking - Ryu Spaeth had a bewildering pseudo-intellectual puff piece about how much he loves Ben Smith and how precious Ben Smith is for knowing he has no conscience or morals. (oddly, no mention of Smith's failed hit on Ronan Farrow, or on how wrong his campaign coverage was this year) He also decided to make a dig at David Carr, which upset Carr's daughter.

Biden has also tapped Neera Tanden to be part of his team, which is causing no shortage of "Mad? I'm not mad...I'm not mad hahahaha [Joker meme a year out of date] you're mad!!!" teeth-grinding from the dead-end cultists Bernie flushed down the toilet in March.