DramatistDreamer

Please remember that South Africa's population is much younger than the U.S. and Europe's populations, so the criteria and results may not be exactly applicable. In fact, the African continent tends to have a younger population overall. Now, if milder symptoms turn out to be the main in Europe, which has an older population, that may have more correlation to the U.S., which has more in common demographically.

After the tirades about CRT faded (times just after November elections, quelle surprise), I just knew the deficit hawks would rear their heads. Manchin is a conservative (no way is he moderate), of course, he'd start scolding about deficits-straight from the GOP playbook.

And omicron is on an even faster path, as unfortunately, I knew it would be.

Oh, I see. Well, glad you made it through. It's too bad you couldn't get the research assistance that you needed. Sometimes a person can be ahead of the times and maybe there may be some developments that come along that could help someone else with a similar ambition.

Sorry to hear that you are having so much trouble, @will81. I'm trying to think of who you might contact who might be able to point you in a more helpful direction. Have you tried any of the actors associated with the shows you're interested in? Some may have some suggestions. Some actors are accessible via social media, a few even have YouTube channels where they have posted clips, episodes and reels. Have you heard of a blog called We Love Soaps? Last time I checked, it hadn't been updated in quite some time but one of the blog's founders, Roger Newcomb is active on social media and he seems like an affable guy, who is fairly knowledgeable and frank. He may be a good person to contact. If you have read any books lately on your topic, check some of the writers, see if you can contact them and explain what you're working on, they may have some pointers based on their reference materials. If I can think of anything else, I will let you know. Good luck and keep the faith! Over the summer I read a book called When Women Invented Television by Jennifer Keishin, she had extensive passages on Irna Phillips and has done quite a bit of research on soap operas. She's on Twitter, last time I checked. She could be a good person to contact @will81. Just a suggestion.

This is what I've been saying for years, but the people in charge are all asleep at the wheel. As @Khanso astutely pointed out, people in charge have found ways to continually bring back DS to various platforms. I would think political scandal can have just as much appeal as vampires.

The daytime soaps currently still on air will definitely have better preserved archives. Bill Bell Sr. didn't mess around. His episodes were archived from day one. I'm sure from his experience working on other soaps previous to Y&R, he must've learned what not to do fairly quickly. All of these shows should've known from at least the early 70s to preserve their episodes, I mean, how foolishly short-sighted. I still wonder about shows like Texas and Capitol, that had relatively brief runs, comparatively. There are streaming platforms for everything these days. Streaming a show like Capitol wouldn't take much, unless the archive has deteriorated.

In "I guess somebody has to do it" news, (also making up for my faux pas post this morning).

This is very cool.

Oops, reading headlines too early in the morning. Dysfunction in the British government, but not the kind that I mentioned previously. H/t to @OzFrog. Thanks for the correction.

Hospitalizations should be given a bit more weight as they are a lead indicator of how much damage us being done to our health systems and the public at large.

I love TT and am always glad to hear from her but Alan got certain show details terribly wrong and it's annoying to long time fans of the show. I don't expect her to remember because it's been ages but Alan failed to prepare and to me, it shows a lack of respect. I genuinely believe that, had P&G showed that they had more confidence in her ideas, she might have been a different person. Had P&G listened to her, The Guiding Light would have been on TV before it actually did but they sabotaged efforts because they thought television wouldn't last. Once they finally did allow it, she urged them to get rid of the organ music, as she believed it would become a source of mockery of the daytime drama and, no longer being on radio, they didn't need the organ cues to signal the end and start of scenes and P&G didn't listen. Whenever any comedy sketch show wants to lampoon soaps, what's the first thing they do? Of course, that organ music plays. Yes, she was a b*tch but I am interested in the reasons how and why she became that way. I doubt her neuroses sprang up in a vacuum. And there is documented evidence that P&G consistently undermined and she became more combative as the years passed.

Unpopular opinion: daytime soaps that were linked to production companies that also produced movies were/are in a much better position than the daytime soaps that were linked to corporations that had production companies. A Warner Brothers and a Sony Pictures will always treat the issue of archives with more regard than a corporation like Proctor and Gamble.

It's a bit of irony that the best way to write characters that will be universal is to write them with specificity. Marland wrote the Franklins as well as the Griffins with specificity (the way he wrote the Snyders or Hughes with specificity) bit he wrote themes that were common to many people. He wasn't trying to make either the model Black family, they had flaws and dysfunction, just like the White families on the canvas, but some aspects were specific to a Black family, especially in regards to Roy's family, the way some elements were specific to the Snyders being a farming family. This is what's missing from the writing today in many soaps. So many characters today seem interchangeable, or easy to forget. Something Tunie mentioned about Marland has been a recurring theme with him, he often gave actors the space to leave and do other projects and return. He trusted the actors and gave them the freedom to explore various aspects of their craft Compare that to what we've read about Irna Phillips, who appeared to want to keep her actors tethered to the show and micromanage their every move. Was this because P&G micromanaged her, and she didn't feel as though they trusted her vision and in turn she didn't really trust most of her actors?

Yeah, I was thinking that Labour might harbor a distrust of the Lib Dems after Nick Clegg's stint as the head of the Lib Dem party. Coalition building must be hard when the trust is lacking.

Tamara Tunie briefly mentioned Count Stovall and I wish someone would interview him about his time doing soaps. The Franklin family really were the predecessors to the Griffin family and they were based in Oakdale. I've said this before but there are not nearly enough episodes with the Franklin family. The topic of police shootings and death of young Black men were issues that were part of their story, and I wish I had more backstory on the tussle there must have been to put some of that on air in the mid-1980s on one of the most conservative daytime television channels. I mentioned class and race because for some reason, class is not often discussed or highlighted in Black families, at least not on television. The memorable thing about Jessica being from the BX, yet being solidly upper middle class, while her family was working class caused a rift in the family. I would love to hear your ideas on how gender figured on the Griffin family dynamic as I wasn't keyed in to how gender figured into how the Griffin family related to one another.

TBH, I am not sure how much this has changed. I saw a number of comments disparaging Johnson because she made allegations against both Cosby and Noth, as if there were a personal deficiency or moral failing within her personally for being victimized more than once.

I as much as predicted this but people apparently are still surprised. Surprised or not, it's a big deal. This area was Tory territory for two centuries!

Eileen has done more of these soap podcasts and live streams and she is technically still portraying these characters, so I expect her to be a bit clearer on her character(s)' history and she will stop and correct Alan if he's wrong about some things.

So many things not discussed, like Jessica's uneasy relationship with her family, that really intersected class, Jess's relationship with her father, in particular. So many missed opportunities to go beyond the superficial aspects that most people can get from Wikipedia and IMDB.

The livestream left me feeling kind of sad, tbh. There was no one to intercede to make it better. It was great to see Tunie but I won't be watching any more of these. It's just too sad.

This is the first time I've ever heard about Beverly Johnson and Chris Noth. Back in '95 I watched so little television and if it didn't have to do with my studies, I wouldn't know about it at all. It's so sad to me that although these allegations were public, they were pretty much brushed under the rug. I wonder why?

It's a pity that Roger Newcombe isn't doing these livestream reunions, he's so knowledgeable. From what I saw of the chat (admittedly, I usually try to avoid them because trolls tend to gravitate towards them), nobody even corrected Alan. I guess the majority of people in these livestream reunions aren't that knowledgeable about the show beyond the late 90s up to the final years. Further back, they don't seem that aware.

A few years ago, I remember thinking how great it could be if the character could be revived and recast, until I remembered that Bradley Bell would be writing her and immediately thought "Nevermind".