DRW50

I didn't even believe KMH being interested in Tom. I hated that whole storyline. They did mostly pair Melanie with men who were much older or much younger so I guess it could have worked, but I'm not sorry I didn't have to see it. I don't know why I thought he was Iva's therapist. What you said makes more sense. I haven't watched a lot of this time period as I didn't even know how much was around. I agree that they shouldn't have made Iva "the heavy." I suppose she was always a heavy character, but they got away from that a bit when they paired her with Kirk. It's unfortunate they doubled down in order to bring in Ellie. And then Ellie ended up being horribly depressing in the end too, as the whole show became very dark by that point, so it was all for nothing.

Thanks! I thought it was her but wasn't sure. Not really the best commercial...

It's weird to see Iva dating her therapist as I thought that was seen as very unethical. I wonder if that's why it never went any further. Too bad, as I think they have a nice vibe here, as she slowly tries to find her life again after letting go of Kirk. This episode also had one of Marland's dream/fantasy sequences. I notice after the first year, when they were very campy, they were often much more serious, as this one was. Therapy subtext as text 101, I suppose. Gail does remind me a lot of early Marland Barbara, now that you mention it, especially when she confronted Frannie to try to rile her up. The story itself is flat but Gail had the potential to be an interesting character. I wonder just what she was threatening to tell about Courtney. By the next year Courtney would be remade into a complete sweetie-pie. She annoys the hell out of me either way, but at least here she has more personality. I notice in this episode they make sure to have those family moments, bantering moments, with the Hughes family - this is what made them special to me, and what was lost by 1996 or so. Someone on the video commented about how odd the Emily and Hal scene late in the episode is when you remember they would later marry. I just can't picture Melanie Smith with Hal. Sometimes I forget how much they played up Tonio being a sex fiend. He has one woman on the go here, is playing mind games with another, and is about to get a third. Peter Boynton isn't unattractive, but he doesn't have the charisma to make it believable. I loved the bit where Susan says only a fool would be with a married man, then awkwardly pauses.

I was reading the NYT's piece about Mary Poppins and blackface (I am not going to link because they chose to make it desperate clickbait). It's pretty sad, and sums up how hollowed out that paper has become in search of revenue. Publicity at any cost. The article itself is decent enough, as they mostly speak about the racist and racially charged material in Mary Poppins (more the books than the movies). It certainly told me a few things I didn't know. Unfortunately, they chose to go with a headline about Mary Poppins and a Shameful History of Blackface, with a still from the movie that had Mary with chimney soot on her face. Most of which did not even have anything to do with the points in the article. They went for cheap attention and overshadowed any points the article might have made. Choices like this are why the NYT has become such a joke to so many people.

Is this Alice Barrett in the ad around 40 minutes?

The odious Ron Fournier, who helped destroy the longtime reputation of the AP, is now out there passing himself off as a "bipartisan" voice (we all know what that really means). https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ron-fournier-is-president-of-bipartisan-pr-firm-but-his-clients-are-republicans Reading the comments I see that "liberal" MSNBC is fighting for him tooth and nail, as they are the Starbucks guy. This is why I will never say a word of praise about that network just because they have a few progressives in front of the camera.

He's up for reelection this November, but given that it's Kentucky, I doubt he will lose.

It's funny seeing Anne Helen Petersen's name in here, as it was her needlessly lengthy and oddly embittered slogs against actors she saw as too Hollywood and unworthy of her seal of approval (like Ben Affleck, Tom Hanks, and Arme Hammer) that made me realize just how truly pretentious and shallow Buzzfeed was. I've seen some of her more recent work, like her article on millennials, and it is stronger, but that wasn't the type of journalism Buzzfeed wanted so it's too little too late. I'm not sure why Katie Herzog needs to give Dave Rubin publicity, but given that she's a big fan of Ellen Degeneres, I can see where she may be a fan of another soulless, sellout gay who cowtows for bigots.

Of all the people who blast federal workers, McConnell doing so is the height of hypocrisy, since his wife has been appointed to various roles (and never done anything of note in them) for many years. I wish I was surprised that media darling Chris Christie got the usual roses and champagne for his book tour, with various "liberal" hacks having him on to trash Obama and defend Trump. Even now the media still prefers Trump to Obama. I guess because Obama never needed them, and never will. I think all the hyper negativity against her has led to backlash, as she's doing much better in polls than I might have expected.

I think it's because it doesn't give them anything sexy to write about. They can gush over Olivia Colman because The Favourite is a "hot" movie and a historical movie. They can gush over Gaga because she gets clicks and she has an enthralling life story. As years pass more and more people seem to agree that JLaw's Oscar was not deserved, and that she was never worth the hype.

Slate tends to love clickbait hot takes, so nothing new there. The level of contempt for Glenn Close winning an award based on career respect, which has been a part of the Oscars for many, many, many years, does nothing for me. Trying to shoehorn in some kind of comparison about Rami Malek (where there are valid reasons to not want him to win) just ends up making a mockery of sexual abuse allegations against Bryan Singer. I don't understand his claim that Rami is sure to win. It seems fairly obvious to me that Christian Bale will win, even though from what I've heard it's not very deserved. This comment did make me laugh: Jeff Bridges in Crazy Hearts. Kate Winslet in The Ex Concentration Camp Guard who Learned to Read. Nicole Kidman's fake nose in The Hours that Felt Like Years. Julianne Moore in Alice’s Brain Is Broken. Cate Blanchett in Late Period Woody Allen film #512B. Gary Oldman in Another Winston Churchill Hagiography. Al Pacino in Hoooooo-Ahhh! There are plenty of lifetime achievement awards given to great actors and actresses in mediocre movies. It's not the end of the world.

This seems to be one that wasn't already up on that Astheworldstillturns channel. I have no idea who that Matt guy is with Iva. He would have been a better match for her than most of her '90s love interests. I have seen so little of the Burke and Frannie story and I had no idea that this Gail woman even had her own promo! Marland seemed to always try with these scheming ex-girlfriend or ex-wife characters, like Taylor, this woman, Julie, Marcy, Lilith, etc. They end up being a pretty mixed bag. I always thought the guy who played Sean was hot but he also has a tendency to seem completely insane. I have no idea why Frannie wanted to be with him, aside from his looks I guess. They seemed to struggle with where to take MES' Frannie until the Darryl story. I saw someone in the comments say 1990 was a weird year for the show and I can see their point...

I remember around the time of the elections that people were saying Foxconn was obviously not going to happen and that the GOP would likely just blame it on Tony Evers. Sadly the public will likely go along with this.

It was posted in the Empire thread, I think. It's so awful I don't know what to say. I know that some people wonder if something else is going on, but what we do know is terrible.

Dan Coats is a hard right conservative. It will be interesting to see how Trump and his flunkies try to discredit this type of Republican.

I've heard many people say what Brokaw is saying, but the problem is no one who needs to "assimilate" is going to do so because of politicians or journalists hectoring them. It's a very complicated issue, and Brokaw has nothing to say that is worth listening to. Only last week he was going on about how Democrats were just as responsible for the shutdown as Republicans and blasting their younger members for putting on a show instead of working with Democrats in Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota (states that were irrelevant to the gains Democrats made in 2018). Brokaw has had nothing interesting, or relevant, to say in many year.s. He is a creature of the echo chamber that is NBC News and the Beltway. Plopping him down on their news shows so he can mutter away while everyone else looks on awkwardly is a very easy way to fail.

The media really has been pushing Liz Cheney the last few months, using her in their fervent efforts to help Republicans get the House back. I guess it makes sense - she's a proud hatemonger and homophobe, and the media loves Republican women who are proud hatemongers. They pushed and pushed Joni Ernst and Sarah Palin until they both revealed themselves to be too stupid to manage much more than talking into a camera. They also adored her father, so they must want to continue his legacy through her. They must be getting hot and heavy at the thought of getting to ride around in tanks again and play action hero, the way they loved, loved, loved doing during the Iraq invasion. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/29/liz-cheney-republicans-1128132

I guess they thought it wasn't making enough money anymore.

Kim Hunter appears in this snippet of a Tom Snyder/Tomorrow episode about radio theater. @Vee I thought you might like this as well.

All Kate McKinnon impressions are pretty much the same, just with different hair and makeup. They commit hard to the idea that Democrats and Republicans are the same, it's just Republicans are smarter and less hypocritical while Democrats are craven and weak. That's why I'm not surprised they didn't have a Pelosi and Trump sketch this week. Instead they had Michael Che stumble his way through a shaming session of liberals for being too smug, just to remind viewers again of who the real enemy is. Anyway, I thought the guy who played Tucker Carlson was pretty good. Sad to say I didn't laugh once at Steve Martin - the makeup job was so bizarre and the lines weren't funny.

Procter & Gamble, who made ATWT and GL, wanted their soaps dead from the late '90s on. It's amazing they lasted as long as they did.

Brian May got a ton of deserved backlash for his glib response to someone asking him (on social media, and yes I get that people are often very smug and overly obtrusive toward celebrities on social media) about Singer. The Bohemian Rhapsody people have had over a year to come up with a response about Singer and they still don't know what they're doing. Probably because the only honest response was - "I don't care, I wanted my money." Even Rami Malek's line about not knowing is just about impossible to believe. Anyway, even as I read the article on Singer I knew nothing would change because unlike with Weinstein, most parties are still anonymous. Between that and him keeping the Red Sonja gig, he will continue to skate, albeit in smaller and smaller circles. I'm just glad I never went to see Bohemian Rhapsody and never will. And I have all the more respect for John Deacon, who basically said fuckity bye 30 years ago and never looked back.

@Vee that's a really good description of Pelosi and her tactics. She gets a lot of hate, but she gets things done. Without her I don't know if the Democrats would have held firm. I won't believe anything until the signature is on the paper but I'm glad we're finally moving somewhere.

More propaganda from Netflix - they bought the film of JD Vance's life that Ron Howard is directing. JD Vance, if you are lucky enough to not know, is the guy the press made into their umpteenth special little conservative angel a few years ago, because growing up rural and poor, he understands how important it is to hate the right people, unlike those big city liberals (oh and people who are rural and poor are lazy and worthless...aside from him, of course, as he is now one of the rich and famous). I last saw him shilling for Justice I Love Beer and the Tiger Mom. Considering the messages of a number of Netflix shows, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the higher ups there are also fans. https://deadline.com/2019/01/netflix-hillbilly-elegy-ron-howard-movie-deal-40m-1202541118/

The Michael Bennet speech @Roman posted at the top of the page is worth a watch, as Bennet, in his stumbling way, says what we all know (just how much this country is being left behind). It's the closest I've seen to Frank Capra type politics that I've seen in a very long time. The media will ignore this but I hope the Democratic Party will use the video to help get their message out. Being cute and adorable and "clapping back" is not enough - plain, honest speaking has to be included. Speaking of the media, I see that their new "cool conservative" Dan Crenshaw is pushing the line about how everyone is out to get Christians and poor Covington, poor Karen Pence, blah blah blah. Yet the media will continue to parade him as their forever friend and try to push his views of hate and bigotry as the ideal. I wonder if Lorne Michaels has any shame for making him a big part of SNL this season and helping to make him a popular public figure. Lorne Michaels has carried so much water for so many hatemongers that I guess any sense of shame left a long time ago, replaced by big fat checks.