DRW50

I guess to me, it did leave the show with a dearth, as the attempts to suddenly cobble together a Stewart family when they hadn't been written that way in a long time (I guess it was nice that they did at least leave Emily and Susan on the canvas which is probably what you are saying), among other issues, felt contrived to me, but I see what you're saying. For me it is worse to have the materials and do nothing with them than to not have them but try to bring them back. I guess we can agree to disagree.

I could say it was hollow, especially considering the gifts they still had compared to GL. It just showed me once and for all that Goutman simply did not care. He grafted empty cliches onto the canvas without bothering to do anything with them. Susan and Emily standing around talking about losing Alison, with no mention or appearance by Ellen. Forcing the Katie/Chris pairing. All the airtime spent on "Juicy Janet" and mushmouth Dusty. Bonnie leaving town alone and defeated because of Dusty's unwashed ass - and this was also Jessica's last appearance on ATWT, making it even sadder for me. The last go-round of "evil Damnei." Trying to imply that Holden and Lily might reconcile even though I don't think anyone wanted it by that point. Not even bothering to give any closure to Lisa and barely bothering to let her appear in the final episodes. The trite "kill your gays" ending for Reid that pretty much showed Goutman had no interest in setting up a future or reminders that life goes on. Making sure no gay characters had a happy ending, which made me wonder if there was some sort of resentment going on. What worked was mostly what the actors saved for me, and then the bits with Lucinda and Barbara. Lucinda is probably one of the only things i can genuinely praise about ATWT's last year, along with Barbara, and Molly's return. I guess Carly and Jack reuniting was nice but I hated what Goutman had done to Carly over the years. Even the end with Kim and Bob was made into something more basic than the actors deserved. I think the building blocks were in place but nothing was done with them, whereas just about nothing was left of GL but at least in the end there were some efforts made to remember what made it such an amazing show. It's always going to bother me.

From the little I've seen of 1981 or so (which is when the bottom fell out) it's not very good, but a lot of it is watchable from other years in that period. The NBC stuff seems a bit dry, but certainly watchable, and probably on the whole better than some of what was on display on other soaps around that point (I don't think 1984 was a vintage year for most outside of NBC maybe). P&G not caring and the malice of Brian Frons (who canceled the show twice!) were what did it in. I agree that there was something magical about Sherry Mathis. She must be one of the most popular recasts ever, and one whose work holds up well. She would have been a movie star in the old days.

Duterte really is a mess. What happened to all his kissing up to China? He and Trump are brothers from another mother.

These have been up a number of times now (I've repuloaded them myself several times and I imagine I will again in future...), but if they are new to anyone I hope you enjoy them. There's a lot of Sherry Mathis, for her fans here.

Try the bmuz channel. I think there are a few partial episodes that have her in them. I'm not sure. I think there's one where she's with Zane.

For me a filibuster wasn't so much about good faith as it was about keeping their powder dry for when a more vital seat opens up, although I know it wasn't likely. I don't really believe that Schumer did this for spine reasons, I think it was mostly because they fear their left more at the moments, so I still expect them to cave in future. So to me it was mostly foot stomping with no effect.

The markets trend down as the reality of Trump hits: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/investors-trump-markets-doubt-236901 And the GOP callously letting the ACA die while passing nothing else to replace it continues to do its job: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/house-obamacare-repeal-fallout-236967 Meanwhile, the political uncertainty over the fate of Obamacare is already hitting the health care markets. It drove two insurers to abandon the Iowa exchange in the past week, leaving much of the state with no more than one insurer in 2018. And even that company hasn’t publicly committed to staying.

The thing with ATWT is I don't think it was ever gutted or eviscerated the way many soaps were. I personally think the show was often unwatchable after 1995 (and FMB, then Goutman, blew chances to rebuild the show), but that was just my own personal taste - many other viewers still could have enjoyed it. The building blocks were still there. It's just that they didn't bother to use them. What worked with ATWT was community, continuity, history, family. While there were big mistakes made which undercut this (like getting rid of all of Bob and Kim's children), they weren't killed off, as you see on some soaps. They weren't ruined, turned into rapists or married 50 times and given 6 children each. The vets remained intact, for the most part. ATWT withered away because no one cared. In some ways that makes it all the more depressing. I think Noelle may have mentioned that about Martha in the goodbye ATWT book, as she also spoke about what a hard time Jon Hensley had. I thought it was typical petty Goutman right to the end. Honestly I struggle to remember most of ATWT's last weeks. I remember a lot of Dusty/Janet (ugh) and the Reid stuff, which I loathed. I thought the goodbye to Nancy was decent enough, if not what it should have been. My main memories are of so many things they could have done easily and simply and just didn't bother with.

Was it Hugo Napier that Lucci didn't get along with on AMC or was that the guy who played Kent Bogard? I can't remember. Ben Hendrickson seemed like he had quite a few struggles and I get the feeling CZP wasn't exactly low-maintenance, but the tensions never showed onscreen, and I thought she'd spoken positively about him and the Barbara/Hal pairing. I might be wrong though. I think she may have just been so happy to have a story again (and a fairly big story) in ATWT's last year that it colors her memories. I know a lot of people didn't care for it but it was probably the most I'd enjoyed Barbara since the mid-90s, as I found Sheffer's camp queen version of her intolerable viewing.

That's so unfair - Gowdy Doody is a serious, intelligent prosecutor. Just ask the media... It seems that someone on high has convinced Trump to learn the value of shell games. Nunes and Bannon stepping aside won't really change anything, but people can pretend it will.

Another of those "things used to be awesome with bipartisanship" bits, but the end is more honest in damning Republicans than many of these are. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/how-congress-used-to-work-214981 I wondered where Mercer fit into the Bannon stuff. She's the one who will be a big player down the line I think of anyone in the Trump cabal. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/bannon-resign-mercer-trump-236939

It was because they didn't care anymore. Shameful.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-lost-film-secrets-1.4057564 http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/box-of-old-movies-recovered-from-eaton-s-store-in-1940s-contains-lost-film-1.3355719

Not to do with Valiant Lady itself, but a mostly lost film starring James Kirkwood Jr's father has been found. http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/box-of-old-movies-recovered-from-eaton-s-store-in-1940s-contains-lost-film-1.3355719 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-lost-film-secrets-1.4057564

This is one of the reasons I would leave negative comments in those ponderous "ATWT's final weeks are so superb and so superior to GL's" articles at DC, because they seemed to think it was so brave to have no returns, to kill Reid, and so on. No returns wasn't brave, it was just typical Goutman arrogance, as he clearly thought his ATWT was the only ATWT. I know why people were disappointed by GL's returns, as many felt like drive-bys and certainly someone like Maureen Garrett deserved more, but I appreciated them because I felt like it was at least an ATTEMPT to understand what older viewers wanted and an ATTEMPT to let us say goodbye. And some of those moments, like Nola's look back at Company and Bill and Fletcher saying they missed Ben, meant more to me than anything on GL had in probably about 10-15 years. None of that with ATWT, other than what, as you mentioned, was initiated by the actors themselves. I just felt like I was watching an ego trip. It will always make me feel let down and like my years as a viewer were meaningless to Goutman.

I suppose I just thought it looked chintzy for a 55 year old show. I would have preferred a scene like Bob and Kim, before leaving, talking with a little boy or girl whose mother or father was in the hospital, and to help keep their mind off it, showing them places on a globe. I think it would have shown the generational theme and not been as self-satisfying as many of Goutman's choices were.

I get the idea, but it was unfortunate that my main memory of ATWT's final moments is that Bob and Kim really enjoyed shopping at Dollar Tree.

I think everyone else already said it, and I don't have the strength to type out a long list right now, so I'll just keep it quick - Ellen return (otherwise the Stewarts simply felt hollow at the end) - Andy return - no Reid death - and not because of Luke, but because it was cheap and lazy - a proper goodbye for Emma, instead of her just vanishing months before the show ended - I wasn't a fan, but bringing back Martha Byrne for the last weeks, for the sake of her fans (and from what Noelle Beck said Jon Hensley had a really hard time playing those last episodes with what her rather than Martha, so it sucked for him as well) - ditch that toy globe at the end that really bugged me for some reason

So Kim goes from a frightened girl who chose not to have sex even when considering getting birth control to a girl who was having sex with two men around the same time all while dating one of their brothers. No wonder her mother was so paranoid! I hope the retcon will be worth it in the long run.