DramatistDreamer

I didn't see the match but some tweets described him as being in tears.

Feels like that one has been already discussed at length in this thread.

Seems like a coordinated response from the bigwigs. WTA CEO finally responded, now BJK and others are tweeted their responses today. Better late than never, I guess. 🤨 Still doesn't answer the question of Peng's whereabouts but hopefully she's somewhere safe and maybe it's best her whereabouts are not broadcast to the public.

Seems like I found the answer- Lukashenko is trying to punish the EU for sanctions. According to reports, Belarus has been offering visas to desperate Kurdish Iraqis, even so far as, expanding flights into Belarus and having border guards direct migrants to the border with Lithuania and when that got too busy, the border with Poland. The guards, who pointed out gaps in the fence where entry is easier, even supplied migrants with wire-cutters and axes to cut through the fence. Once on the Polish side, migrants are pushed back as far as the forest, but have no way to get back to Belarus and are trapped in the forest in freezing temperatures with no food, some migrants have died of exposure. These migrants are being used as pawns, it's tragic.

The idea of Colleen and Scotty dating might have been a good one if they dated briefly during a time when there was still strong dislike between Traci and Lauren but that has since been resolved and neither character has had the benefit of strong writing in recent years to hope to revive that history- talk about sailed ships. The other unfortunate aspect of that is how underwritten Scotty has been written as an adult, to the point of neglect. Colleen, at least is a relatively well developed character (by today's standards) to be utilized without too much work but the recent characterization of Scotty is a mess and speaks to how poorly developed that generation of legacy characters truly are.

A few players like Alizé Cornet and Jamie Hampton are raising the alarm, wanting to keep the topic front of mind. It's weird how the tennis media will obsessively report on the work ethic of players, as well as minor on court incidents (Tiafoe vs. Sinner) with fervor while they seemingly ignore this. It very much reminds me of sectors of the so-called soap media that report breathlessly on certain topics, while ignoring things like actors avoiding COVID-19 safety protocols and posting transphobic messages on social media. How can we take these journalists seriously 😑? Don't get me started on the higher-ups at the WTA! That organization needs a real change of leadership.

Normally, I avoid these gossipy blogs and vlogs but I actually recognized the subjects in this particular video. When the host described the situation as a soap opera and then proceeded to yell "Soap opera music!" And OMG, guess what theme music was used at the :22 second mark??😵😂 Actually, the music begins around the :16 second mark. My God, he's petty though!

Something very interesting that I picked up on when I watched an episode from November 1986. Frannie Hughes, while in London, was having a conversation with a PhD candidate in child clinical psychology, Dr. Hildebrand whose focus, among one other speciality, was autism. I wonder whether this was there earliest reference to autism in a daytime soap? The quality of this episode is poor, so, at times it can be hard to make out some bits, here and there but Dr. Hildebrand was definitely clear on autism.

Some WTA players are beginning to ask "Where Is Peng Shuai?"

From what I have heard, he's not but I admit that I am usually wary of American players, especially the guys. Paul is, at this for this weekend, standing in the way of having us have to listen to the endless carping about American men not coming through in tennis tournaments.

Good for Paul though. He's seized the opportunity while it was available.

Facts. Easily.

I'm not really going to get into other people's feelings on the interview but having just read it myself, I take much of what Sorkin says with a grain of salt. There really is no such thing as "Cancel Culture". There are criminals like Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly and Bill Cosby and remains to be seen whether any of them will do any real time. Dave Chappelle is a millionaire several times over, who did a 'hit and run' stand up piece and will likely return with another special on some media vehicle, whether on streaming or in some comedy club. His career won't be hurting at all, no matter the number of denunciations. Also, Sorkin is no one to decry cancel culture when he practically threatened to sue some middle-schoolers for staging a play at their schools because he didn't want any competition for his star-studded Broadway version of To Kill A Mockingbird. Yes, you heard that right, the producers of the Broadway production threatened to sue any production of the stage adaptation that was being staged anywhere within 50 miles of the Broadway play. Now that sure seems like cancelling something. It's also hard for me to believe that someone of Sorkin's age never knew that Lucille Ball had to face the HUAC. It's a well known quote that Desi Arnaz said to the press that "The only thing "red" about Lucy is her hair!" There are no big screen movies about Ball but there are some excellent documentaries on her. One on U.S. public television, than be found in any public library gives a great deal of insight into Ball. I do agree with Sorkin's statement that looks are not very important in casting Ball, but then he goes on to call Kidman a wonderful mimic of Ball, despite so many people claiming to hear Kidman's Aussie accent in the trailer. He's also assuming that those who are critical of Kidman as the choice is simply because they are confusing Lucille Ball and Lucille Ricardo, when there is more than enough footage of Ball in non-Lucy situations to discern her manner outside of the sitcom. I also get the fact that he wants an experienced actress and not a "beginner" as he puts it, but honestly there are plenty of highly experienced actresses who are still not household names, he only need to look at Broadway, but Sorkin is only interested in big stars, even his B'day play proves this. It also made me chuckle when he says he doesn't wish to hide behind the casting director in his explanation for why he hired a European actor to play a Caribbean Latin American man, yet still proceeds to throw her under the bus by saying she was fine with it and she's a Latina. Sorkin did unwittingly reveal the fact that he wasn't going to say no to two big stars who express the desire to be in the movie. (In a way, this is a strangely ironic twist to the recurrent theme of I Love Lucy where Lucy always wanted to be featured at her husband's club but he would always refuse her, so she had to scheme to get in). The money aspect and the star vehicle seems like the most honest part of this interview. At the risk of getting into an aspect that I usually avoid, for not wanting to sound critical of someone's looks, Sorkin goes on about how gorgeous Ball was in her prime (and she was stunningly beautiful), comparing her to Jessica Rabbit or Rita Hayworth, nothing about Kidman in this trailer gives off that vibe. Perhaps I would have to watch the movie to get a better look. Kidman as Lucy, even in casual settings, looks extremely "made up" and not in a flattering way--they've sort of made her look "plastic-y". I guess when the movie comes out and people actually see it, will be the best way to discern whether this is all just talk.

Even the Metro North is terrible, in some ways it's worse--such a slow moving train (that's if you're not on a train that gets derailed) that has only gotten worse with the passage of time mostly because of old tracks. There was a time when I had to take it 5, 6 days a week for a few months-- boy, was I ever miserable!

As someone familiar with that commute and has done it a number of times, even to film locations, I can tell you that, after awhile, it gets old fast. I have also experienced wage theft once or twice in those situations, and it leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth. I know more than you think I do on this topic. I was not interested in easily decipherable data points that can be found with a simple search. I was looking at, thinking aloud, really, regarding the aspect of accountability, which was more rhetorical, as I know perfectly well, it is something we'll never truly get.

Patrick telling a compelling personal story of being committed to a psych ward by his parents for being gay- Alan- "Hey Patrick, I'm gonna have to kick you off for a moment..." These constant technical problems, coupled with bad interview technique, I don't think I'll be able to hang with this interview.

Are we all so burnt out on politics that this indictment came down and nobody can be bothered to post an article about it? Or is it just me?

Tbh, Susan Bedsow wouldn't have needed a co-HW. If it were up to me, I would have tried to get her back to ATWT in the wake of Marland's passing. She would have been more than capable. I wonder whether anyone in charge, or at least near the seat of power will honestly go on the record to discuss what really went wrong. The thing that irritates me about the soap industry is that there seems to be a distinct lack of introspection. Most people are too busy equivocating, trying to make themselves the hero of the piece. FWIW, I agree with those who say that the PP/TOLN soaps were much closer to the model of what a 21st century daytime drama should be. This is why I am absolutely immoveable on the idea that the network television daytime soaps really haven't been innovative in the past 20+ years. Not genuinely innovative.

IMO, Broderick desperately needed a co-HW, someone like Susan Bedsow-Horgan, who knew how to write stories with some interest and also knew the show's storyline architecture.

Unfortunately, Jeff Kwatinez seems to be an unscrupulous guy. I don't like the way the actors were left feeling after the fallout. A few took it on the chin as being the nature of the business but I know a few claimed, if asked, they would not work with PP ever again and I can't blame them. I think you may be right about fans complaining more about OLTL and the swearing, some of this seemed to be driven by a few bloggers who may have been upset that their fave HW wasn't chosen for the task. Another aspect was the fact that a few production people may have promoted the cursing a little too much as something of an innovation, when they really shouldn't have. It became a big deal. I also think you have a point about the time jump. In a way, it's understandable since the show did end on a cliffhanger on ABC but it made more sense to mark some type of passage of time, especially when you couldn't secure some of the vital characters, who had last been seen in the cliffhanger. In looking back yes, but unfortunately the actions of the executives at PP/TOLN negatively impacted these shows and left quite a few of the actors reluctant to work on another such venture. Perhaps minds can eventually change but when you have Debbi Morgan saying she'd never do this again, that's bad and likely to make others wary of the next independent production company expressing the desire to take on such a venture. At this point, the only companies likely to take on such a venture are newer, more independent production companies.

Yes, such a good example! Thank you. The TOLN soaps, while unfortunately being saddled with some less than ethical producers, produced a soap that was at the very intersection of technology and storytelling innovation. Some complained about the sex trafficking storyline, which seemed to suggest that it was too gritty for them but I thought it was exactly the type of story that could be told when you have the freedom of an online medium in which to tell these stories, unfettered by a network. Why would you squander it by telling the types of milquetoast stories that got these shows cancelled in the first place? Those fans seemed to want a return to the type of show that saw its ratings drop and then hung by a slim thread in a march to cancellation. Why would anyone want this? Yes, the language could be gratuitously strong at times, but that was a minor issue that could easily have been resolved had it gotten a second season. Those shows didn't need to be relentlessly mocked the way they were. Sal Stowers, for one impressed the heck out of me, as I had only identified her by her stint on ANTM. Clearly, others were impressed as she was snapped up by Days. And not just the casting directors were watching... I remember half-watching Y&R's attempt at concocting a story about sex trafficking and thinking "These folks really think they did something here". It used characters that were so new to the canvas and so poorly drawn as characters that few people cared about what happened to them, so there were no stakes. And in typical daytime soap fashion, Y&R glamorized the guy committing the crime. It was bad. It's too bad that the TOLN soaps collapsed under the weight of poor business practices by the production company, because it was a great synthesis between an emerging technology coming together with storytelling that was actually relevant to the times we are living in.

Thanks for posting this. It's like I posted in a different thread in this section: soaps have a very difficult time with innovation on any level. They don't do it very often. Phillips was voted down when she wanted to ditch the organ music when The Guiding Light was finally brought to television (another change that P&G resisted for years, as they wanted to keep TGL on radio, while Phillips immediately wanted to bring the serial to TV as soon as the technology became available) because Phillips worried that the organ music, which she deemed unnecessary for a visual medium like television, would become a trope that would be easily mocked. Phillips wasn't always right and Lord knows she had a history of being unkind, at times, but she was clearly right in these instances. I think her constant battles with P&G and her even more frequent bouts with self-doubt clearly embittered her and also gave her a world view that a woman in a man's world was always going to be constrained.

So many people are disparaging this Sorkin interview, for so many different reasons, that I am tempted to read it.