DramatistDreamer

CBS seems like the most ruthless network in this category, at least as it pertains to primetime?

Charlie & Co—which starred Gladys Knight, Jaleel White and the late greats Flip Wilson and Kristoff St. John— a series that offered promise but never fully got is “legs” underneath it, by Season 2, was put against The Cosby Show, a ratings juggernaut. What were the programming folks at CBS hoping to achieve here? It doesn’t seem like they hoped to achieve success for the fledgling sitcom.

Is Danielle Unger in charge of the money and how it gets distributed? That seems to be the main focus of the show these days. Creative takes a back seat to cost issues, it seems.

People do realize that Steve Kent (is he still there?) or whoever is in that position is not interested in finding new talent, right? Please tell me that you understand this. Talent is easy to find. The writers in the ranks of (pre)professional stage and screen writing programs and alumni networks are out there and in the pipeline-if one is interested. 

Sony is really only interested in keeping the machine going by only doing enough to keep things going at minimum cost. There is nothing that they have done in the last decade to indicate that this is not the aim.
Even Mal Young who was initially touted as being such a revolutionary choice was chosen more for his managerial skills, coupled with his presentation of something “new” to American daytime soaps, which was really akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

In the Pretty Baby docuseries, Brooke Shields had somewhat damning words for Zeffirelli’s directorial style on a particular scene during filming of Endless Love, which she found to be abusive. By that age, Shields had learned to be such a professional that, to most viewers, none of that showed up on screen. FWIW, it seems that none of her costars were aware of what happened to her, as it happened during an intimate scene that was filmed on a closed set.

1 hour ago, Errol said:

If I understand correctly, if I were to host a YouTube show, I could *technically* win an Emmy (or at least be nominated) based on the inclusion of this new category (daily or non-daily being a distinction based on episode counts).

I’d rather call you a host. They need to save the Daytime Personality moniker for the People’s Choice Awards, or another awards show where the public can vote. Daytime Personality sounds weird for an Emmy award. Will fans be voting in these categories? That’s the only way this would make sense to me.

Daytime Personality?? Can this genre sink any lower?

Oh man, this is sad news. There are a number of videos of people who had never seen Rocky reacting and loving the movie. Carl Weathers was such a charismatic presence on screen. A true onscreen action hero.

Sounds like something that would happen at an Elon Musk owned company.

Josh Griffith is infantilizing Ashley (as well as seemingly writing the beginnings of some sort of psychosis or mental breakdown, seemingly in a (failed) attempt to revisit and exploit Ashley’s history of mental health instability (as if someone of Ashley Abbott’s means didn’t have access to a good psychiatrist and effective therapy). Josh is infantilizing Ashley, the way he used to infantilize Sharon, the way he is also infantilizing Heather.
In Val’s defense, she has had much better writing and an actual career that we saw her working on in her previous stints, so she wouldn’t have had time to handwring over Daniel’s indecisiveness. Also, that’s not a cold sore on Val’s lip, she’s had it for years and it’s the same type of mark that Eileen Davidson once had for decades until she either had it smoothed down or makeup artists started covering.

I have contended for years that most of Y&R’s writers over the last 15 years haven’t a clue as to how to write women with any sort of nuance-it’s down to the most flattened stereotypes: fragile basket case, harpy-shrew, overly ambitious seductress/promiscuous, doormat or practically asexual presence/nonenity. JG is no different.
He is simultaneously giving us lush/needy Nikki who Victor calls “baby” every five seconds while he reminds her to sit down(why not just buy her a fainting couch?), Angsty Ashley, who has taken to shouting at waiters in Parisian alleyways. Hapless Heather, who is practically using all her intellectual powers (instead of as the strong-willed, occasionally cunning and ruthless, brilliant lawyer that she was once written to be) to get Daniel to canoodle with her in public (and the stupidity of that hamfisted contrived scene if Lucy giggling behind the door, left ajar was the stuff of constant eye-rolling). They have Phyllis even acting like a collegiate with half the emotional intelligence, in a quest to do what? Mess with Christine (seemingly the only female character operating with operating with any autonomy-maybe LLB put her foot down or inspires some regard as a Bell?, as much as I like ZS, what I like about Audra has everything to do with Silver and nothing to do with how she’s written), mess with Danny, operating out of sheer boredom? Phyllis has never looked more brainless than she does now (one thing Phyllis never used to lack was savvy).

For this reason, I only ever sporadically watch this show for the past 15 years.

I haven’t touched upon Sally whose actress seems to have been given Sharon’s cast off storyline of bouncing between two brothers (feeling like a fool?).

An Op-Ed written by a former hostage of the October 7th attack offering an interesting and insightful perspective. You should be able to access this article freely.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/opinion/gaza-war-holocaust-shoah.html

On the first day of Black History Month, an op-ed piece by Charles Blow.

The Dawn of a New Era of Oppression

Over the last few years, I have seen ads for these very short form dramas, but I thought they were some sort of spinoff of Korean dramas. It will be interesting to see whether this takes off in the U.S. and whether brands sign on for advertising, which we all know has been critical to most soaps that air on broadcast television.

What are your thoughts about this?

Minute-Long Soap Operas Are Here. Is America Ready?

1 hour ago, soapfan770 said:

I adore Diane but I would have rather watched her resurrect her career as the renowned architect, with Sally as a sidekick as they struggle to get off than ground than her as co-CEO of Jabot. But that would have been too much drama for Josh Griffith to write. 

Something that I was thinking about and frankly, was bothering me when I decided to tune in again to see what was going on with this show. Diane is an accomplished architect who had her own career and now, it was just reading as someone who has given up her talent and everything she built to stand by her man. Yes, there is the question of what would she do, how would that look onscreen but right now, she could have been taking meetings at Crimson Lights (like everyone else in town) with Sharon on designing Sharon’s office building. Do we have to see it? Do we see half of what anyone does for work anymore? Or they could just do a weird CGI a la Summer’s rollercoaster ride or Chance and Summer’s concert date or a CGI construction site or exterior, like they do any number of places. Photoshop can do any number of things these days.

Welp, a perfect illustration of my previous post, @dragonflies. They’re already doing it so they might as well fully commit and branch out.

Although, they could give more detail and better shading and light.

13 hours ago, Antoyne said:

I actually stopped watching the show for a long time after that. It was so stupid.

Me too, come to think of it. Was it Mal that gave that insulting interview about killing her off being a “gift” to viewers? And then implying that her pregnancy was somehow costing the show. I can’t remember exactly what was said but at the time I was pissed! That woman worked wonders, she actually made Bryton (who I have nothing against, I actually think, given the right material, can perform as well as most of the other actors) look like one half of a bona fide soap supercouple. Even if they we to bring the actress back as Hilary tomorrow, I don’t think they would be able to restore what they once had, not with these writers.

9 hours ago, DRW50 said:

It's a distraction and a way to keep the culture wars going. This is what they do best. And anyone who is tired of this very overexposed relationship may end up buying into that BS.

Believe it or not, I haven’t been following her personal life. I stopped following anything NFL years ago, so I was almost entirely out of the loop until yesterday. The MAGA people just look desperately stupid for clinging onto this conspiracy theory. Their usual conspiracy theories are dumb too but this one is among the silliest.

^^That’s decent cross promotion and it made me chuckle. Made me long for the days when they use to do those cute preemption promos during the U.S. Open Back then, they really knew how to build anticipation for the shows returning after the Labor Day break.

This is so stupid on the part of MAGAts. Here’s to “Swifties” putting the, in their place.

1 hour ago, Soapsuds said:

These overnight finals are atrocious. Thus the low ratings. Commentators were saying during the match how bad it is that finals are overnight in the states because a lot of tennis fans were missing the match.

Jannik Sinner’s comeback win over Daniil Medvedev in the Australian Open men’s final averaged a 0.37 and 528,000 viewers on ESPN, up from a three-set Novak Djokovic-Stefanos Tsitsipas match last year (439K).

ESPN is reaping what they have sowed. They have been alienating tennis fans for years, making tennis less accessible with their bogus ESPN+ platform (why relegate every match to ESPN+?) and they have been underinvesting in tennis for years now, despite vacuuming up the broadcast and streaming rights to 3 out of 4 of the majors.
Most of today’s newest tennis “stars” don’t have the personality to get eyes in front of the screen past 8pm EST, let alone 3am. The time is set by Tennis Australia, so ESPN has no control over that but ESPN should be making streaming as readily available and accessible as they do their NBA games, in order to try to hook fans on the newest generation of players. The ITF and the entire alphabet soup of organizations need to start over with making this sport more accessible and appealing to a viewing audience. ESPN shouldn’t be allowed to have exclusive rights to streaming of the majors, neither should the Tennis Channel for that matter. USTA should take back the rights and put it back on their website, and just add commercials and run occasional ads at the bottom of the screen during matches. The All England Club and the FFT should do the same. Any viewers outside of that particular nation could pay a fee to stream a universal feed for the two weeks (with a choice of with or without commentary)

The Tennis powers that be need to come up with some innovations before they decide to sell the sport to kingdom of Saudi Arabia, lock, stock and barrel.

Battle was such a dynamic dancer and incredible choreographer. A phenomenal talent.

9 minutes ago, Mitch64 said:

 the follow up episode is a hoot with the kidnapper trying to shut Lisa's "yap" by stuffing a gag in her but even that doesn't work.  The writers were having fun with the characters without making them the butt of the joke.

The kidnapper is played by David Cryer, the father of actor Jon Cryer (Pretty In Pink, Two And A Half Men ). Cryer was brought back about 5 or 6 years later to play mob boss Phillip Lombard. I was hoping they’d have brought him back in the show’s final years, possibly as a paramour for Lisa since they had good chemistry. Instead the show shunted Lisa (and Eileen) off to the side.

Ah, I see @Paul Raven. Thanks for that post. Maybe the only thing that can be done is to try to upgrade the back office at Crimson Lights. The last time I saw that back office, it was looking fairly grungy.

3 hours ago, ranger1rg said:

The thing is, I'm fine with these boxes being checked. I love seeing old storylines revisited, seeing characters from years ago brought back.

The problem is that Josh Griffith introduces them with fanfare, and then the follow-through is PFFFFTTTT. Every single storyline ends as a disappointment.

Unfortunately, he’s been writing stories this way for years. Someone should’ve nipped that in the bud when he started doing this.

The International Tennis Integrity Association has decided to appeal the decision to clear British player Tara Moore of charges of doping.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/68141134

This infernal issue with sets and budgets, there’s a dignified solution in there somewhere. I’m fascinated by it despite no longer being a regular viewer.

Question: Does Sharon still have a house? Could there be space for a home office? People do work from those..

A woman who was so vibrant, it seemed like she would go on past her centenary and keep going from there. ¡Vaya con Dios, Doña Chita!  Descanse en paz.

Rather than typing in the URL, if you use a search engine and type in We Love Soaps, and click a link that pops up in the results, you will see the site itself, just not when typing the URL directly.