DramatistDreamer

It would be interesting to get Heather Tom's perspective on this, knowing that the last time she portrayed a character that was in a high-profile interracial relationship on a soap, she and the other actor (Kristoff St. John) suffered a tremendous amount of blowback.

He was on more soaps than we all realized!

Corbin Bernsen also had a brief role on ATWT in the mid 80s.

And BBC is known to be quite stingy about licensing their content. Now that you have Netflix, Hulu, Britbox and Acorn, it will be easy to leave PBS stations out in the cold. For example, Sesame Street went to HBO for first-run episodes, leaving PBS with, what is essentially repeats.

People are pushing back, so there's that, at least. Hopefully, there will be more media that will now offer context to this news, now that they have been and are still being roundly criticized.

I know that when BB tried to make Brooke into B&B's Valley version of Reva Shayne (even having a sort of 'baptizing' of Brooke as the "Slut From The Valley" similar to Reva's literally baptism as the "Slut Of Springfield"), the show truly began to get further away from its origins. The character that once had some complexity morphed closer to caricature, imo.

B&B From the beginning seems to have well over a hundred episodes on their YouTube page. The fact that their episodes uploaded to YouTube has higher quality ads than what they're likely to have on network television really sends me!🤣😏 ASOS fashion, AppleTV+, Hulu, HBO Max, the entire trailer for the new Batman movie for Warner Brothers. CBS could never!

Oh Prager is absolutely disgraceful. He has those insidious rants masquerading as ads on YouTube. Despite complaining about those Prager "University" ads, Google and YouTube still runs them on occasion.

Unfortunately the CDC and WHO (with their sometimes muddled messaging) have been no match for the likes of What's App and Facebook. Even YouTube just recently started disabling accounts that had been promoting snake oil cures and misinformation. And most of the earliest headlines mentioned that he was fully vaccinated without mentioning his multiple ailments and how that could figure into things. The media is also not helping the fight against misinformation.

He also had Parkinson's, but that will get lost in the narrative, where the vaccine resistant are concerned. The Caribbean and Jamaica, in particular (where Powell's family line is from) has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the Western Hemisphere. There are, unfortunately, deep pockets of vaccine resistant people and misinformation circulating through What's App (a social network which I despise) makes it worse. I have already gotten calls and had to chide relatives who now believe that vaccines don't work. And these are fully vaccinated people. We can't dismiss what impact this could have, especially with the misinformation networks working more effectively than official organizations like the CDC and WHO, that, on occasion have transmitted muddled and confusing messaging. Remember, this is a virus that started among the wealthy and well-traveled and spread to the lower-income and poor with less consideration about education and mitigation. It is also a virus that will never truly get under control until a large enough percentage of the worldwide population gets fully vaccinated. And we're nowhere near that marker.

Our weekend discussion in this thread made me think about what different groups of fans consider attractive. The photo above reminds me that ATWT was not like Y&R, B&B, or even GH, in the types of actors they were known to frequently cast. Jon Hensley and Melanie Smith were more likely to be the exception, rather than the rule on a soap like ATWT, while on B&B, etc., it was more likely to be the direct opposite. ATWT had attractive actors, who were attractive in a way that seemed more accessible, rather than some of the fantasy types that were on most other soaps. GL was also like this. Maybe it was more about what P&G shows believed their viewers would find appealing. It seemed like they relied more on a combination of allure and attractiveness, rather than out and out "sex bomb" qualities of their characters. There were moments (Hensley, Smith, Lamman Rucker) but they were not in the main. I think the acting showed us why one character might appeal to another beyond pretty looks. I also appreciated that you could have a character like Smith's "Emily" have awareness of her sexual power, but you could also have Jennifer Ashe (Meg) also have an awareness of her own sexual power, yet the boundaries of the limits of each seemed quite realistic and stories built around this seemed more accessible. Nothing against those soaps that delved more deeply into the fantasy aspect but it was always the more realistic aspects of P&G shows that appealed to me as a fan.

A surprise and a shame.

How very unfortunate. Breakthrough infections, both Gen. Powell and his wife, who recovered. This is going to set back vaccination efforts in some communities that are already vaccine resistant. When that headline alert came in, it truly hit.

It was said that PBS stations edited out specific scenes, not the episode itself, which still ran. I don't remember any disclaimers before Tales Of The City on my PBS channel, but they had also previously shown films with gay characters and themes before then.

Oh, Out Of This World was a terrible show and I felt sorry for Donna Pescow, it was a filler show for me. I think I used to catch DJH repeats, or something, I can't quite remember what, but OOTW was a tie over program. I guess I could have turned the television off but that was like surrendering television time to my older brother and he was not going to snatch control until 12:30pm, lol. I was a little past the target age group for Steampipe Alley and I didn't find Mario physically attractive but I found him really amusing. I especially thought it was funny how almost none of the kids picked up any of his Broadway references. It all went right over their heads, lol. Honestly had I not watched shows like That's Entertainment! on PBS, I probably wouldn't have understood either, lol.

I'm not going to judge when I was watching the likes of Out Of This World and Steam pipe Alley 🤣. Maybe due to the pandemic, there has been some pretty interesting BTS content on DJH/DH in particular. It's fun to watch, particularly the actors themselves talking about how those episodes came together. Seems like a much organic process than even what the show would later become, with the actors all being professionals with agents. Back then, I think Dayo Ade (BLT) was the only actor with an agent.

Man, has it really been that bad??! I really have missed it all. In case I didn't make it clear, I enjoy Ron's posts in the ATWT thread and even though I haven't been watching much tennis, I often find myself dipping into that thread where he's one of the few board members actively posting, which keeps me up to date. I don't really know the extent of what's going on, I hope things can be worked out, as I said before. Although, everyone has to do what's best for their well-being too. Mental health is no joke, especially in these very stressful days. If something no longer gives joy, it's best not to engage in it.

I tried to watch SBTB, but I honestly couldn't really get into it fully. Good Morning Miss Bliss seemed better written than SBTB. I'd rather watch a show that fully leaned into its cheesiness, rather than a show that was really cheesy but tried hard to be realistic or worse, tried to go back and forth between serious and cheesy, like SBTB. I remember reading that the kids from DJH in the repertory company who compromised the actors often talked to the writers, who allowed changes in dialogue. The kids also put together their own wardrobes and styled their own hair, etc. A few of the storylines were inspired by the kids too. Neil Hope lost a parent when he was younger and it inspired the story of Wheels losing his adopted parents. One of the things that made the show more realistic to me, were little things, like Melanie (who had decided to wear lipstick to appear grown up) finding out too late that she had been trying to flirt with Snake while having lipstick all over her teeth. Ouch! 😂 I felt so much secondhand embarrassment for her. But little touches like that gave the series a realistic feel. It really felt like junior high in that regard.

I also remember watching Tales Of The City on PBS. I remember hearing years later about some controversy, but what was it about? I found it kind of sad that the newest installment didn't air on PBS as the original film adaptation did. It just goes to show how much more risk-averse even NYC's PBS station would become. I miss that old programming ethos. I saw a lot of risqué Brazilian and French films on that channel, lol.

Thank you!! People were trying to make me feel like my eyes didn't see, but I remember that abortion episode with Erica and Heather where they went to the clinic and all those anti-abortion protestors were there. Someone on YouTube was like "It was cut out of episodes running on PBS stations in America". I was like "Well, I guess Channel 13 is not America because I saw those scenes!" I was almost starting to doubt my own memories but that scene with the lady holding the figurine fetus stood out in my mind because it creeped me out, the tone of the woman's voice most of all. WNET was very liberal in their content. I don't believe they censored anything on that channel because I've seen...some things.👀 Nowadays, I would believe that they have become more conservative though, due to the constant threats from Republicans in Congress that they want to cut funding for PBS.

Are you serious? Maybe I'm not in those threads, but I have never seen major conflict between you two. We don't always agree on all our viewpoints but I have generally enjoyed your sense of humor and your posts. Hopefully, you can both work this one out.

Something else that people outside the industry may not realize is that IATSE members in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have a completely different contract that is not expired but also offered to strike in solidarity with the other IATSE members whose contract terms were in contention.

I don't know. I just know that it was watching this particular PBS channel (I had access to about three PBS stations growing up) that I first remember watching EastEnders. To be honest, I am surprised the show lasted this long on WLIW, for one, because they moved it away from what I referred to as the 'Brit bloc' of programming on Friday nights, which included shows like "Are You Being Served?", eventually moving it off Friday nights entirely. I just remember never knowing how to find the show. At one point, it was moved to almost midnight and I couldn't stay up for that. I probably stopped watching around then. I had no idea that they eventually moved it to Tuesdays. That's not even getting into the aspect of the show being at least a decade behind. In the age of the Internet, streaming and VPN, I'm guessing that would not go down too well. Nonetheless, it's sad, for all the people who were still watching. Maybe Britbox(is that still available?) or some other entity might pick up EastEnders. Paying a subscription fee is not the same as watching on a public broadcasting network and having the luxury of dodging pledge drives. I could have sworn seeing something, like a months old tweet trying to fundraise-- it sounded pretty desperate, tbh, so I don't know how successful they were in their efforts.

This reminds me of that age old adage that says the lawyer who chooses to represent himself in court has a fool for a client.

The end of an era.