MichaelGL

Where do I start with Emmerdale? mikelyons I think you just covered everything that has been wrong with Emmerdale for quite sometime. The current EP started off pretty good as I was one of the first to notice that compared to Oates, he was adding more of a community feeling to the show and trying to instill a bit more humor. However since his first year, he's been pretty abysmal. Sure it's nothing like killing off Viv and Terry, which is the definition of destruction, but he's made the show feel like a meandering ship that doesn't know what direction to go in. There should've been some other way to write Emma off without killing her. The websoap writer in me envisioned her taking little Moses and disappearing until the actress was willing to come back; such a thing would have had a riveting affect on Charity and Ross as characters. However, we got poor Finn being left for dead in the woods and a lame ass murder mystery that showed a very ugly side to Moira that I quite simply wasn't fond of. I wholeheartedly agree with what you said about the absence of the seniors. Quite frankly I wasn't all that impressed with Edna's funeral, and knew from there what path the show was heading down in regards to its older cast. I'm thankful MacLeod didn't reunite Paddy and Rhona after that Tess/Pierce nonsense, but I assume my gratitude should be directed towards the single writer on the show who might have nixed the idea because looking at our EP's track record he would've probably reunited them if he had it his way. Since MacLeod came to the show, he's extinguished any love that I once had for Tracy. The character that we used to sparingly see at the Bed and Breakfast with Finn and Eric, has been shoved down our throat with one story after another in order to just prop her. Is Tracy's dad even on the show anymore? How do you waste the actor that plays her dad and the one that plays Megan? It baffles the mind. The less said about Bob/Laurel the better. Completely out of nowhere like the other 1000+ affairs that have continued to occur on this show from Oates now with MacLeod. The show just feels directionless and ho-hum. It's predictable in the sense that of course a storyline with promise will be used to prop up MacLeod's favorites. It's boring because there really aren't any heightened stakes on the show anymore. There's a few good ideas, but the execution is just poor and completely lazy.

Anyone else looking forward to the Stormy Daniels interview as much as I am? And the Trumpists are basically saying to the kids who are speaking out about gun violence "Shut up and grieve."

I actually agree with you. It's not the lushly produced soap that we would see later in the 80s, or what some have described Y&R as being under John Conboy. Watching episodes of other soaps around the time this aired, it's interesting how it compares to AMC and GL at the time. I guess many of the changes that occurred during the last half of the 80s were mostly due to Wesley Kenney and later continued by Ed Scott.

And H.R. McMaster is outta here.....

Yup this is what I agree with. I can't help but to think having Allen Potter as EP somewhat helped to make the Pollocks writing a bit better than it was under Stuart.

The Pollocks are gone, I'm a bit sad, but also happy at the same time. Farewell to repetitive triangles where the third party turns out to be a total nutcase. But I'll miss the stability they provided the show with. Looking forward to DePriest, Marland, and Chuck Weiss's tenure. I have to say Toni's characterization these days is all over the map.

Heck even this Gabby/Liv storyline is being used *at the moment* to prop up a Dingle and have the whole family gang up on a much more smaller family. It's ridiculous.

In my off and on viewing, I will say that I like where they are taking Rebecca's character these days and that the car crash that took the lives of Lawrence and Chrissy is being shown to have a lasting impact. I just hate that I have this tiny feeling that the TPTB will use Rebecca's mental instability to make sure Robron will have Sebastian.

I'm already feeling as if Emmerdale is not giving this Ross storyline the justice it deserves, with the repetitive scenes of Ross being visited by the police.

Yes, he was murdered and there was bit of a mystery surrounding his death. I think it was a major mistake to kill off another Aldrich(of course he's not Aldrich by blood). I'm liking the slow burn of Mike's return to Madison. For all their faults, I think the Pollocks were masters at build up.

Isn't much of what we are currently seeing (or 76?) around the same time ratings were declining? Having done some reading much of the expansion of other soaps had some effect on TD's ratings. Later on many of the cast changes, a revolving door of writers, and later on time slot changes put the final nail in the coffin.

The only team I'm willing to believe that might have formulated a bible would probably be Culliton/Tomlin.

Never thought I'd be this interested in Tom and Althea, but I am. The miracle of miracles. Yay Penny is back!

What's even more ridiculous is that Pam Long had worked with Paul Rauch on SB, and I honestly don't believe he bothered to ask her to return to GL.

1984...back when the show was seemingly firing on all four cylinders. GL was at its best IMO when much of the drama was taking place at or around Cedars.

Sucks that we're losing the actor that plays Lachlan, as he's quite talented. I hope he turns up somewhere else very soon.

Rita should've returned with a adult son, who's paternity could've been a toss up between Alan or Ed.

Wished they would have brought back James Tate. But this was a decent twist, I wonder if somewhere down the line we'll get to see Zoe.

Why is that? Watching the fallout after Toni and Alan's wedding, particular how it's impacting Greta is PURE CAMP! LOL I can't help to think that some of the Pollack's writing must have influenced JER somehow lol Matt/Maggie and Greta are perhaps the only part of the show I'm enjoying.

Yeah that's what I'd like to believe too. Sigh..

Why did the Dems allow for a extension on the budget debacle, instead of playing on the threat of a govt shutdown?

Yes to all three questions.

Putting aside all the points you listed, don’t you just think it’s a bit jarring, unlike any president before him, the way Trump personally attacks private citizens both before and after the election? During the election you have him advising his followers to look into the past of a particular Miss Universe for a sex tape. When he became president, you have him calling private citizens S.O.B.’s, demanding others to be fired from their jobs, or just recently labeling one as “dumb”. Most notably you have him going after the families of two fallen soldiers. He even politicized the act of presidents contacting families of fallen soldiers by claiming Obama rarely did it, then in a complete 180 claiming someone told him this. The list goes on and on… I’m not going to shout you down, something that you state has happened on numerous occasions when you’ve made similar comparisons in the past, but I am seriously puzzled when faced with what I have listed above, that the left’s criticism of Trump is still somehow considered as being the same when the roles were reversed for the last 8 years.

With news of this travel ban being approved by the courts, the ruling that apparently Same Sex Couples aren't entitled to benefits, I'm just numb to how low this country can sink under 45.

Ugh. It's just filled with too much misery and sadness for shock value.