DRW50

The Intercept world always seems to focus on the most contrived conspiracies - I saw that someone who works with them was saying that Sean Patrick Maloney ran for NY AG to block Zephyr Teachout and how his Congressional district is now "likely R" because he quit.

I think it's actually improved some the last month or so - last week was better than I expected, anyway. There seems to be more focus on community and family again.

Thank you so much @YRfan23 ! What a huge surprise this was. I dove right in. I'm not sure any episode could better showcase the differences between Janice Lynde and Victoria Mallory (RIP). I picture Mallory doing a lovely and tasteful number from Showboat, rather than a sizzling cabaret act. While I always thought that Lorie and Mallory's Leslie attracted the same men because of their differences, I now wonder if Lynde's Leslie and Lorie did because of their similarities. There are also big differences, of course, but here you can see the same passion for life and charisma Lorie also generated. The scenes with Lorie are also very good, the softer side before she learns the truth. Mark isn't really what I thought he'd be, but the actor and JLB have good chemistry. That life lesson he gave to Jennifer was very profound, very moving (Brock would be proud) but of course the sadness underneath is it meant nothing - Jennifer was right, and he would soon realize. That scene at the end is a heartbreaker, even 40 years later. This episode also reinforces how important the half-hour soap format is, and why the writers like Claire Labine who tried to keep to that format had the correct instincts. The Lorie/Leslie scenes (Leslie going up just as Lorie is about to crash hard) wouldn't have worked as well in the hour format. The whole thing is really a great example of what a diverse mix Bell's Y&R was - you have jazzy showtunes and motivational speeches all in one episode. Does William Gray Espy have a diaper on his head in his credits drawing?

The saddest part of the threatening text is that Jericka Duncan is much more likely to have her career hurt longterm by this than Fager is. She is a very brave person for coming forward the way she did. I shouldn't be surprised that someone in such a position would make those types of threats, but I am. No wonder CBS News has fallen on such hard times. So the CBS board was more upset about being lied to than about what Moonves did. I saw that Bill Cohen was involved - given his ties to the Clintons, turning a blind eye is clearly nothing new to him. Moonves trying to get one of his blackmailers a job at CBS when so many eyes were on him was the height of hubris. What a fool. Yet a richer fool than any of us will ever be...

True, although for me that was because she worked on a CBS show up to the mid-00s.

Thanks. Sorry - I shouldn't have sidetracked that way.

Was Lorimar the CBS primetime soaps too? If I hear he got up to anything on those shows I will want to vomit...

There was another version of this story in Farrow's first article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/06/les-moonves-and-cbs-face-allegations-of-sexual-misconduct A prominent actress who played a police officer on a long-running CBS program, who was too frightened of reprisals to use her name, said that she also attended a business meeting with Moonves that ended in unwanted advances. The actress had known Moonves for years. In the late eighties, at the height of her show’s popularity, Moonves, who was then at a production company called Lorimar, requested a lunch meeting at a restaurant. There, Moonves told the actress that he had long had a crush on her but had not said anything to her because she had been in a relationship with a mutual friend. She declined his advance but thanked him for lunch. “It wasn’t offensive,” she recalled. In 1995, when Moonves became president of CBS Entertainment, the actress called to congratulate him. “He said, ‘You should have fucked me when I asked you to,’ and I said, ‘No [!@#$%^&*]!’ ” the actress told me. They laughed. Soon afterward, CBS Business Affairs informed the actress that her series deal with CBS was being terminated. She called Moonves and expressed shock. He requested a lunch meeting in his private dining room at the office. She told me, “I went in, I thought, to make a deal.” At the lunch, Moonves told her that he intended to focus on younger talent, and that she was too old. “Then he again said, ‘I’ve always been so attracted to you,’ ” she told me. “I was so upset. I said, ‘Jesus, Leslie, I’m gonna go.’ ” Moonves asked her to sit down. She did so, pushing food around her plate until she had to leave. Then, she told me, “I walked over and leaned to give him a kiss on the cheek.” Moonves, she said, grabbed her and forcibly kissed her: “He shoved his tongue down my throat. I mean shoved.” Appalled, she pushed him away. “He had approached me to go to bed with him twice, but he did it politely,” she said. “But this time he just stuck his tongue down my throat.” As she left, she began to cry. “No one had ever done that to me before,” she said. “I found it sickening.” Like Douglas, the actress said that she never worked for CBS again. Almost two decades later, an executive at CBS contacted her about coming back to the network. It turned out that the executive wanted her to sign a book deal with Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS. (CBS said that Moonves has no recollection of making unwelcome advances toward the actress, and that he made no efforts to block future business between her and CBS.) The actress thought that the consequences would be too great if she told CBS about the incident. “I never reported it,” she told me. “I just thought, Gee, there goes my career.” At an event not long afterward, she encountered a showrunner who has overseen multiple programs at CBS, and told her the story. The showrunner, who had also worked with Moonves, recalled that the actress was still hurt by the incident and told me that she was “not surprised” by the story. “I had already had to deal with misogynist bullying from him myself,” she told me.

Fager's comment gives me such Trump vibes. The entitlement is off the charts. The idea of him berating his employees to cover a story that he was a key part of. I have a feeling someone at CBS must have wanted him out as otherwise they would have turned a blind eye.

Good. He sounded like a real horror and it sounds like it had been going on for years and years with no end in sight. I just hope his replacement won't be a stooge, as seems to have happened with Moonves's replacement. (is it s' or s's?) Hmm...

True. I think she had a show on CBS until about 1992 or 1993 so I wasn't sure if she still had ties to the network by the time he came in. I keep thinking about all the women at the company who tweeted support for him. And of course Lynda Carter. I haven't had the heart to check and see if she's said anything else.

I thought it might have been Sharon Gless. If that's the same article it says she didn't work on the network again (or something like that) - Lansbury did a few more MSW TV-movies.

Reading that makes me remember the whole hubbub with Nia Vardalos and her sitcom at CBS. I think Moonves said she wouldn't work for the network again (I can't remember). At the time I assumed she may have just had a big ego. Now I wonder. Knowing that people were dropped for the network for even working with her (in Huey Lewis' case this must have been around the time he was in Duets - he could have had a hit for CBS) is crazy. And Bette Midler also would have been better off with someone who had a much different approach than her sitcom ended up having.

Someone was tweeting out the old Time 2006 cover a few weeks ago, comparing it to 1994 (1994 was an elephant on the rampage while 2006 was about "the center"). The media loves the GOP and they are dearly hoping for the narrative they have spent several years pushing about the GOP standing up to Trump to come true. The media is riddled by daddy issues, as shown with McCain (RIP) and Mitt Romney. They want strong dads, and cool dads. They associate Democrats with mothers they hate (Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton) and fathers they saw as weak (Jimmy Carter) or never willing to bend to them (Obama). It took tons of breaks, and also the GOP overstretching their Congressional gerrymanders in 2002, for Democrats to win the House and the Senate. I am hoping the Democrats will get at least one chamber, but I am expecting none. Too much money is behind the GOP and too much of the media consolidation. If Democrats do take over anything, the press is already pushing their scripts about how scary it will be to see all those women and all those non-white faces in power.

Audrey Landers is in one of the Pillsbury ads.

Is this Thom Christopher in the Clorets ad? (I almost wrote Tyler Christopher...)

Is this David Rasche in the ad around 2:03?

I had the same thoughts you did - seeing Quinn and Maisie just helps to enrich the canvas, yet they were both dead within months. I actually get very annoyed when I see Quinn because she has so much potential. How did they not notice? While I don't think the Mary story worked, I can understand why Denise Alexander must have been compelled by the story. It's some great stuff for an actor to sink their teeth into. The Rachel/Mitch stuff is what gets my attention the most. It's character-driven and well-acted (and Rachel looks so stylish - I love her belt). Meanwhile Felicia is slowly becoming interested in Mitch herself. This is so much better than what we would get within a few months (the Donna recast mess, the serial killer story).

Thanks. That's a shame. And sadly typical. They were a real force in those clips - they have still done well for themselves (and I know it isn't about commercial success for the sisters anyway) but it's unfortunate they got such criticism. And it seems like black women are the ones who get the "sold out" criticism the most.

Camille had nothing else. The question is whether Julie tries to salvage what she has, or just stays with Les for security. I know there's talk that Big Brother might be canceled after this season, as the ratings, while still decent for summer filler, have slipped. And now with this. If it happens then the only show she has left will be a format that will cruelly expose her.

This hits on a lot of what many here have talked about in the past, regarding the ACA, red states and their dependency on programs they claim to loathe, etc. Joe Manchin is running an ad which tries to thread that needle - shooting a lawsuit designed to take away the pre-existing conditions clause in the ACA. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/obamacare-back-on-the-ballot-in-west-virginia

Reading through all this is so disheartening (especially the part about his replacement). It shows just how little has changed.

Somebody I know in Sweden was very upset about this op-ed. The NYT is being the NYT, as usual. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/opinion/how-the-far-right-conquered-sweden.html It sounds like the far right party made gains, but that the main two blocs are still in power, if they can form a coalition.

I get vibes of Cynthia Preston's son and Will Cortlandt as they seem to have this character type with potential and he always ends up becoming a murderer or going psycho. It's a shame, as Dysert is very good. As is Linda Gibboney, who is just enthralling as messy, messy Sybil. I was watching the August 20th episode and the way she toys with poor pathetic Devon is something to behold. Poor Linda never seemed to get the real break in soaps she deserved. Opal is just horrible in these early episodes. Not only exploiting her underage daughter to perverts, but slapping her around. I notice they made sure we didn't see the slap - I wonder if they were worried about complaints. AMC always had a rough edge compared to the other soaps, as shown by how popular Billy Clyde became in spite of being a violent pimp, but I'm still a little surprised at how beloved Opal became after watching this. I can't believe they already had the seeds of the Jesse and Jenny friendship planted only three episodes into Jenny's arrival on the show. It's been such a long time since I have watched a soap that was intricately plotted. It makes me feel sad. I may be wrong, but I was sure he was not wearing underwear. Soaps in the early '80s were really something.