DramatistDreamer

EB is pretty handy with this social media stuff, lol.

Margaret Reed and Michael Swan dated, so that could have been a factor in the decision to pair their characters romantically. Ironically, though, by the time Shannon and Duncan got together, Reed and Swan had broken up, which also could have impacted what we saw onscreen.

I didn't think that Beau and Nella slept together, although I thought that Nella was fixated on Beau and Beau let her be (which led her on, tbh) because she inflated his bruised ego, from the time when he temporarily lost his voice. I don't think Mrs. Franklin was a nurse. I think she took a job at the hospital (I'm not even sure it was a paid position, but she wanted to have some sort of work outside the house). The way Nella and Beau departed the canvas was weird, with them being too close friends but not lovers. Also, it still seems like what's on YouTube is incomplete. I do think that Kasi Lemmons' (and even Victoria Rowell's versión) Nella got screwed up by the Writer's Strike as clearly they didn't know what to do with Nella, and could only write Roy as the angry Black guy jealous of Duncan. To be honest, I preferred Tiffani Caesar's portrayal of the character.

It was a whole mess. Performers were caught in the middle- loyal to Cornelius for giving them a platform on television, which very few black artists, particularly soul artists had, but also afraid to turn down Clark for fear they might not get a chance to play to a "mainstream" audience on American Bandstand. Cornelius actually asked Jesse Jackson for help, because with Clark's connections, he feared Soul Unlimited would poach artists and ratings from Soul Train. Despite its name, Soul Unlimited only aired twice a month, I think (that's less than Winter's Wednesdays!). I don't remember what happened exactly, but Soul Unlimited indeed had a limit, as the show was eventually pulled off the air.

Nella was a nurse, same as Meg. They both entered the Nursing program at the same time and became friends, but you wouldn't know this just by watching what's on YouTube. You'd get the impression that only Meg and Pam were friends. Something that is regrettable about the relatively small collection of videos uploaded to YouTube is that there is such a microscopic focus on characters like Lily and Holden and characters in later years, while completely forgetting other characters and interesting storylines. It was Nella who didn't like Heather at first because she felt somehow threatened by the attention that Roy was giving his deepening relationship with Heather. Roy still lived at home, so perhaps Nella had been used to the attention her big brother used to lavish on her (Count Stovall had great sibling chemistry with all his onscreen sisters and I thought Tiffani Caesar was great as a bratty younger sister). Nella actually didn't understand why Heather left a career as a singer to study law. When Heather was with Tucker, she was an aspiring singer, but with Roy she was already studying to become a lawyer (one of the reasons why it always struck me as a bit odd when Jessica was introduced as a lawyer). Roy's mother actually seemed to like Heather and Roy's father seemed more consumed with the fact that he hated Roy's profession (because of Roy's brother being shot and killed by the police). I think there was a bit of tension with Jessica wanting to live with Roy, rather than marry him. Roy believed his parents wouldn't approve of the arrangement, while Jessica couldn't understand why Roy still lived at home with his parents, lol.

I remember seeing that Soul Train documentary where it was revealed that Dick Clark stole the concept from Don Cornelius and put out Soul Unlimited, so I can't say that it surprised me that Clark tried it.

Me, I was that someone. 🙋🏾‍♀️ I also happened to think that the big chaotic group gatherings had become a feature pre-Marland, if you look at events like Tom and Margo's zany wedding in the park (where Tom and Margo literally "herded" friends and family, in various states of dress/undress) to the park and even events like costume balls and dances from as far back as 1981, you can see that that wild unpredictability in some of those sequences. By the way, I enjoyed those big events. People seemed more relaxed, those scenes came off as less "staged", even though we know some of the movements of characters, in and out of scenes had to be choreographed, at least a little bit. We know that the actors enjoyed those scenes, but yeah, like I said upthread, it's easier for the bean counters in penny-pinching P&G to see where they might have deemed were 'redundancies' and possibly proceeded to make "cuts" to the cast. I could see some exec, looking at Kevin and Jay, thinking, perhaps the show didn't need both characters. I don't know for sure but, from what I have read Steven Weber decided to leave the show? Is it possible that, the show might have decided they wanted to keep Kevin (as opposed to Jay, who no longer had family, as was pointed out, and was no longer Frannie's bf) yet Weber elected to leave so they decided to write him out? It's pretty obvious that Doug Cummings was always meant to be a short-term character, on the canvas for a relatively brief storyline arc (brief in soap terms, where a story can spin for years). I wonder if Steven Weber would be open to talking about it. Nah, probably not, lol.

Tucker was gone by 1984, I think and according to the actor who played him, Eddie Earl Hatch, his departure was not handled very well, he left with hard feelings for the show's execs, in particular. Once Steve and Betsy became a super couple, Tucker's role as confidant and business partner to Steve already seemed diminished by degrees, and the wedding sealed his (Tucker's) status, imo. Tucker left town and Roy Franklin entered, sometime in '85 and Roy and Heather dated and eventually got engaged, etc. It seems that around '86, there was at least an attempt to build a family around Roy, whereas there was never any attempt to give Tucker family, from what it looked like.

Japan seemed to be managing well six months ago and then began to make some very suspect decisions and now look-

What did I tell you about that Yastremska?!! The clown car just keeps rattling along.🙃🙄

Iva must've been stalking Lucinda for months, as it was several months before she was revealed to be behind those phone calls. I could see how penny-pinching P&G might have thought the cast needed to be culled. Those Halloween party scenes are chaotic.

Also, when exactly did John find out that Lucinda was Mary Ellen Walters? I wish there were more episodes with Steven Weber. For a moment, I thought Heather was going to grab that check right out of Marie Kovac's bosom but Heather kept it classy.

I'm still watching it, but the repartee between John and Lucinda where John asks her "Can I borrow your bathtub?" sounds like incredible foreshadowing. I also chuckle whenever I see that, in the midst of the verbal jousting between them, John still finds the time and wherewithal to tell Lucinda how good she looks. More breadcrumbs. Just as an aside, I always found it cute that John and Dusty had that special "too much to do" handshake.

All nuance eventually wore away as well.

Can you imagine if Colleen were still on the canvas when J.T. returned to GC? It would also have given Traci more ways to be active story wise had Colleen not been killed. When a character like Colleen is killed, it can affect more than just that character.

Unlike self-described fans of cancelled soaps (I'm looking at you, ATWT fans, lol), Y&R fans truly turn up for these streaming discussions--check the view counts.

Trend is a good way to describe it, even though it is a trend that has lasted decades unfortunately, and it's not even the way soaps started, as the daytime drama began with middle class families grappling with the everyday issues of life. It wouldn't even occur to these executive producers to hire more black and non-white writers in their writing rooms. If the show does well in the ratings, BET+ will likely order more episodes.

@JaneAusten While I no longer live, work or attend school in NYC (former Brooklynite and Manhattanite), I still live close enough to get all the NYC news affiliates and somehow I am still on the e-mail list of the Rep. in the district where I once lived in Manhattan (although I recently requested that my name be removed). Having voted in elections and sort of keeping up with the election, I have my own ideas on how I think things will proceed but ranked-choice voting is a big consideration where the calculus is concerned. I will say that, with the upsurge in crime (shootings and assaults especially) on the subways and some streets, Eric Adams (who had been scoffed at by progressives) has been building interest and endorsements. Ray McGuire seems to be the choice of the well-heeled set and Kathryn Garcia seems to be getting more notice these days. Maya Wiley has a following, primarily from her time on MSNBC. All seem to have little problems raising money (McGuire is self-funded and has lots of wealthy backers, Adams and Stringer had raised the highest totals). Shaun Donovan could have been a dark horse until he made that ridiculous comment about him believing a house in NYC costs $100,000! Ray McGuire essentially said something similar but McGuire isn't running a campaign predicated on his experience of having been Secretary of Housing and Urban Development! The wounding of DeBlasio's reputation seems to be mainly self-inflicted. I remember watching his inauguration on NY1 Livestream and there were so many hopes placed in him but he got mired in petty squabbles with Cuomo (which the media gleefully played up to the hilt) and just stupid things like making several unnecessary trips per week in a big gas guzzling SUV from Gracie Mansion to his old neighborhood gym in Brooklyn to barely workout. Then there is the aspect of his habitual tardiness (which hasn't been talked about lately, so maybe it's a thing of the past?) which cast him in a poor light. Some of the issues, I have to say, were holdover problems from Bloomberg's administration (homelessness, lack of building of affordable housing) that grew in size during DeBlasio's time in office. One thing that NYCers should be aware of now, in the midst of the pandemic is that the real estate industry has had too much away in the planning of how Manhattan, in particular has been built up in recent decades. Too many office buildings and towers, not enough apartment buildings. The pandemic has emptied out many office buildings, many only becoming useful as temporary housing for homeless and quarantined people who cannot safely quarantine in their own homes. DeBlasio's own refusal to get out of his own way, accept the idea that he wasn't always correct, adapt and adjust was a big part of why he is often regarded with bitter disappointment and enmity these days. I definitely remember Christine Quinn, Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer who were all either frontrunners or headed straight to Gracie Mansion...until they weren't.

Only managed to see about a set and Serena seemed to be adjusting her shirt a number of times. The fit was not good. The style (were those pleats?) seemed seemed like an idea that went awry.

She definitely left a memorable impression on Emily (her cheek, to be precise) with a good old fashioned soap slap, which hadn't been delivered in a couple years, since Babs, Margo and Lily, Iva and Sierra seemingly all retired from slapping folks.

Pera will have to show me something real before I ever show any enthusiasm for her ever again. I learned that at least two years ago. She always looks promising... until she doesn't. She won't fool me again. Medvedev is gangly and awkward but he can move around the court without you even realizing it. It seems like, if he truly wanted to, if he committed to it, he could have decent results on clay but not as long as his mentality stays the way it does. Osaka...hm. She doesn't seem to like grass much either (which is a first for a Japanese woman) but now that she is fitter and more accomplished than she was a few years ago, she has more upside on grass. As for clay, if Lindsay Davenport can get to the second week of RG, Osaka can make QFs, but it would be dependent on her draw and if she could muster enough confidence in any given match. That all goes out the window if she faces a player who thrives on clay. Podorolska clearly thrives on clay. Meeting her so early in a draw was not great for Serena.

Yes, this was the storyline where Greta slapped Emily outside of the courtroom after yelling "Whore!". The funny thing is how Emily kept it moving, as if determined not to let Greta see her react to it. From a writer's perspective, a character like Greta is best used sparingly, in short arcs, or the character can easily become unsustainable. In order to make the character a regular part of the canvas, the writing would have to make her more like everyone else to fit into the canvas or the writing has to increasingly "up the stakes", in which case the storylines and characterizations become more over the top, at risk of making the character cartoonish, a frequent problem on soaps, which has cost the genre credibility, imo. You can't realistically write a character like Greta consistently, over the long term, unless you devote huge amounts of time to writing storylines especially focused on exploring deeper psychological aspects of the character, in order to both humanize as well as prevent the character from becoming stale, and what then becomes of the other characters on an ensemble show when you devote so much time an resources to one character? Then you get a Victor Newman-like situation, unhealthy for the show. That's why a character like Greta is more likely to appear in a script for a movie, where there is a definite beginning, middle and end, than a serialized show.

This is why I have been trying to tell people not to get too far ahead of themselves on proclaiming Yang to be the default on "frontrunner" status. Those "polls" have surveyed less than 1500 respondents in a city of millions, usually tends to have an Upper West Side/Upper East Side (UWS/UES) bias and there are at least a dozen other candidates on the Democratic side alone. It was always going to come to pass that, as soon as more people got vaccinated, less people stressed about the virus and all the turmoil to daily life that it has wrought, voters would begin to pay closer attention and candidates would start to be culled. Still, I had to chuckle when I saw a Yang ad this morning that showed him 'in action' getting an enthusiastic and lively reception from would be NYC constituents because it didn't show the reality of Yang getting cussed out in various NYC boroughs for honking off New Yorkers, 😂. Scott Stringer, who had been considered a serious candidate is seeing his prospects crumble too. TBH, I never really gave Stringer much of a chance to begin with, but for a completely different reason than the one he confronts now, which I did not foresee. Initially, I just thought Stringer lacked the personality to stand out among the scrum of personalities in the race. Stringer is standing out alright... for notorious reasons. Similarly, I had thought that Shaun Donovan would not rose above the pack, but he has finally managed to distinguish himself-- for making a somewhat idiotic observation, as did Ray McGuire but in Donovan's case, it comes off as particular egregious as he miscalculated the cost of a house in NYC--this coming from the former Housing Secretary.

Every time I read something about Andrew Yang, it's talking about how he has apparently offended an entire community. It's almost comical at this point.