DramatistDreamer

I know, ATWT was in such a sad state in its final decade. I had to take breaks because it would make me feel highly agitated at times, by the end it felt depressing, tbh. It was almost a full year after the show went off the air that I actually watched the final episodes that someone posted on YouTube. Maybe had I stuck with the show, the show wouldn't have looked so stark to me but going back to look, everything looked dystopian compared with many of the vintage episodes. All they would have had to do was have Lisa decide to start dating again. Ask Casey or someone to helo her create an online dating profile, which Casey, in order to protect. his grandmother, changes some details on her profile. Have her go on a few dates, nearly lose hope until she starts corresponding with someone she clicks with. The person writes to admit that his online profile isn't completely truthful but he wants to meet her. Lisa is skeptical and discusses this with Kim, Casey overheard this and decides to come clean and admit that he wasn't completely honest in her profile. Lisa is upset by this but decides to meet with the stranger from the online dating platform. Only he isn't a stranger, as Lisa soon discovers... But sadly, the producers of ATWT at that time had little regard for Eileen/Lisa. A damn shame since Lisa was the original "bad gal" of daytime television. Her character did things that were unheard of for a woman character in the daytime.

Waaay back in the beginning of this thread I believe most of us had high praise for the content and creative direction of the TOLN soaps. It was clearly the business end of things that killed those shows.

I am eternally grateful that I had taken one of my breaks from watching the show when that vomitous storyline happened. To this day, I have never seen it, which in my brain means it never happened.🙃

The show could have used Ellen in the last decade. Emily was still on the show, Allison and even Susan. Kim could have used a friend and Ellen and Lisa could have settled into a nice "frenemy" relationship, especially when their kin became close. And in her last years, it could have added more dimension to see some scenes with Nancy Hughes not being bored to the core as she listened to Katie's endless prattle.

With their railing in favor of parochial schools as it adheres to their "school choice" battlecry, I'm surprised they're even paying attention to public schools at all. I'm thinking it won't last. Conservative politicians and overfed think tank members are sending their kids to private schools that implement those same programs that claim to loathe. Now that the Oscars that most people never really care about in the first place are a memory, hopefully the focus can shift to missing phone records from the previous administration and the obvious corruption of a Supreme Court justice and his wife.

I noticed this as well. Although I found it deeply aggravating, I was usually able to ignore it until she passed away. Half of those people are unlikely to have even been fans, just bandwagoners seeking attention for their posts and tweets. I am also seeing photos from the Academy awards program where the mix-up between Moonlight and LaLa Land being falsely attributed to the "slap". It's a pet peeve of mine when people post and don't get their facts straight. It ends up spreading misinformation even more.

Over the years, I have proposed or "spitballed' things I would have written for As The World Turns, things I would have done differently, particularly in the final 12 years of the series' run in the ATWT thread. I'll just highlight one story that I wished the show would have revisited-there was a character that was married to one of the show's longstanding characters, Barbara Ryan, who, after being diagnosed with a degenerative and ultimately fatal disease, left in a hot air balloon and was assumed to have later died. Well, you could probably guess part of what I would have done. There is a syndrome called "locked in syndrome" which basically keeps sufferers of the illness "trapped" in their own bodies, unable to move (beyond the twitch of an eye perhaps). Unlike Angela Forrester on B&B, who could grunt (and who was an imposter who was faking anyway), I would have Gunnar, Barbara's assumed dead husband slowly regain his ability to speak after decades of care by doctors and with the recent efforts of a nurse who has come in over the last two years and become devoted to his care (and also has fallen in love with Gunnar). The man who had been a John Doe gradually is able to communicate and the doctors seek to help him uncover his identity and reconnect to his past and his family, including his biological son Dusty Donovan and his ex-wife (were they officially divorced?) Barbara Ryan at the precise time when Barbara is set to marry Henry Coleman. (I also did a treatment years ago about how to bring back a legacy character on a different soap Y&R, which I also proposed a medical mixup and "locked in syndrome" as a possible story mechanism). I always thought the writing in the final decade of ATWT was far too convoluted, yet lacking complexity, especially in a way that made sense. Anyway, I saw this news item in the NYT and it reminded me all over again of my storyline concepts that I had years ago. This story, with the inclusion of somewhat shady research doctors would be a great addition to any such story. They could mix in with the devoted nurse who might develop ulterior motives for maybe keeping Gunnar from reconnecting with his past. It would also complicate things for Henry, as well as Barbara, Dusty, and anyone in Oakdale who remembers Gunnar. Throw in Vienna Hyatt who is still in love with Henry and has an interest in seeing him happy (but with her) and it could have been fun.

As great a dancer as he was, when Michael did Don't Stop Til You Get Enough and Rock With You, I really wouldn't call that the best use of choreography, if it was any choreography at all, it seems improvised. More like grooving to the beat. His serious choreography came with Thriller and he had backup dancers. Even Billie Jean, there were images of the "one" and that black cat. Pleasure Principle was Janet, alone doing full-on choreography on a stripped down set.

There are many ridiculous takes being flung across social media/Twitter. The one asking "what if this were Betty White?" or "What if this were The Rock?" is mind numbingly inane. First of all, can people let this woman's soul rest in peace?! Every week, it seems someone is putting out some ridiculous theory and attaching her name. I'm not even kidding. Her name trends almost every week. Neither she nor The Rock had/have the same comedic sensibilities as Chris Rock. And people are delving into racism, somehow making allusions to voting rights, makes me wonder if people are tweeting soberly or not. Whilr we have people actually working against voting rights sitting in Congress and on the Supreme Court. I wish I could wipe this entire topic from my consciousness. It's getting on my nerves.

Maybe it's just me but I had a moment where I thought Kristoff St. John would probably have some words of enlightenment. He not only knew pretty much all of Black Hollywood but he approached his insights with a sense of equanimity.

I wonder if he had more interest in working behind the scenes, even back then, as he has done a lot of editing work over the years.

I'm genuinely not trying to shade Sinopharm or Sinovac, but I am truly curious to know how effective those vaccines have been, particularly against the omicron variant. I'm not sure whether we'll ever get an accurate answer to that question.

Oh, it was definitely a mess. I felt especially bad for Venus and Serena, it's the second time that they had to be caught up indirectly in someone else's baggage.

Prefacing, by saying, again, not condoning (because posts will be misinterpreted and ascribed meanings that aren't there) but in his memoir, he talks about feeling like a coward, not protecting his mother from abuse and other instances of freezing when he felt he should have acted to protect someone. He talked about a harrowing experience of seeing a little girl who was being lured by a known pedophile in the neighborhood as a child. Fortunately for the little girl a grandma prevented her from going into the man's house. He talked of the shame of not stepping up to protect her as a little boy. Shame and being perceived as being a coward seems to loom large in his life. He clearly went far in the other direction, towards the hyper masculine behavior. It was wrong. Chris Rock wasn't right for making that joke when he himself promoted a documentary on black women's hair and profiled a woman who suffered from alopecia, with all the trauma that brings. But that moment had more to do with the two men, than the woman. If you don't know what it means to have your hair deemed political and don't recognize what that means for Black women in general, maybe this is not the topic to extrapolate on.

Whose name was actually Steven but Lucinda stated that she called all her butlers "Matthew", so that became the name he answered to while at the Walsh mansion.

Have other people been on a stage where there was a "staged" slap and a real slap? In theater, I have personally been on stage to witness both. That was no staged slap. That was real.

She looked nice too.

You can take it or leave it, it matters not to me. His book details him having grown up in a toxic, abusive household. It doesn't take a genius to see where that can lead. That is not condoning the action. RIF.

He won't. It will likely be talked through between the two of them. Just very awkward to see.

I just deleted my tweet because I realize it's already been posted. I will say that Denzel Washington is a great actor and a great man, the way he is trying to diffuse that situation.

Jada has spoken about this on her Red Table Talk and before that Essence magazine. Still, an assault on live television...

I told you all, y'all should have read Will Smith's biography. He grew up in a home with a lot of violence.

Why did I decide to check Twitter One. Last. Time??! Whew!

I might have to check the roundup tomorrow because I'm not staying up for this.