DramatistDreamer

I really need to not hear that man's name, at least for the rest of the day.

So far, Trump has pardoned 2 rappers, likely the only black people who will get any pardon from his pen, the rest, likely all white men. Let's not pretend otherwise. He put many more to death. Speaking of the loser, yet another Trump-era EPA rule has been overturned and thrown out.

I get that Stenbeck was originally meant to be a goner in '83 but his return in '86 was done so well-- probably the best written and executed return of a character that I have seen on a soap. So, I get that the temptation was there for another writing regime to bring the character back but by the end of the 90s, the writers knew so little about that far back in the show's history that, honestly, they should've just left it alone. The last regime to write him, wrote him as a complete caricature.

As someone who has written scripts, I see what you are saying but until I see the script, I can't make a judgement on whether it's about the age difference, or a difference in ethnicity, which could be an equally important or even bigger issue. Lopez had the say so and apparently, Duhamel was one of her first choices for replacement, so that's... something. Also, scripts get rewritten many times over ( which can be a bad thing as often as it can be good). If they are still in pre-production, it's possible that some of the ideas were ever evolving anyway. If people really held firm to things like age, the movie version of The Wiz would've had Stephanie Mills and not Diana Ross.

That's a great print promo. Hard to imagine any media outlet paying this much attention to promote a daytime soap for a print ad. Production companies do this in the trade magazines to promote their Oscar contenders but short of some miracle, I think we're past soaps ever doing this again. '89 should have been the last time we saw James Stenbeck, when Paul shot him, unless there was a damn good story to bring him back. The one that brought him back over a decade later wasn't it though.

If Duhamel is starring opposite Jennifer Lopez, I doubt the bump up in the actor's age will make much of a difference, tbh.

Biden and Harris starting out on a respectful note, remembering the 400,000 lives lost to COVID-19 this evening.

Today's remembrance service was brief but very moving. It's incredibly sad that in the US alone 400,000 people have perished from this virus.

Get 'em Ms. James! On another note,

That news about him fleeing to Florida, at the same time that Palm Beach County is trying to get out of their lease for a branded golf course (thus following NYC's lead)

Probably because they decided that voter suppression worked so much better for them, with far less effort.

On the one hand, I am relieved to know that this VA man has been apprehended. On the other hand, it is more than unsettling to think of the others who lurk, waiting to attempt the same thing. Internicine conflict has been quite a long time coming for the GOP, when you remember the rifts that were forming with the emergence of the Tea Party. Like they say, "Winning covers a multitude of sins" and the Republicans taking over the Senate during the Obama administration and Trump capturing the White House four years ago, briefly obscured the fracturing of the GOP. Personally, I could care less if that party goes away forever. I just think this fracture did not just suddenly spring up. It's been there for over a decade.

Kirk Anderson (ATWT) was obviously meant to replace Craig Montgomery (Tom Wiggin came on in Scott Bryce's absence). Kirk Anderson, a charismatic businessman with a devious streak became the right hand man to business mogul Lucinda Walsh. Kirk had even had a brief dalliance with his former boss, Adelaide Fitzgibbon, that sort of mirrored Craig and Lucinda, although it was implied that Kirk and Adelaide's romantic relationship had been deeper and longer-lasting and certainly lacked the combativeness of Craig and Lucinda. I had no problem with this as I liked Wiggin in the role, and I certainly thought Kirk was a better fit for Iva than Craig and Iva. One thing I wished is that Kirk and Ellie had been stopped short of getting to the altar, just as Craig and Ellie had been stopped short. I do think that Jessica Griffin was meant as a pseudo-replacement for Heather Dalton on ATWT, as it's a bit odd how Heather became a law student about a year before she left Oakdale and Jessica enters the canvas as a lawyer. Of course, Heather was once engaged to Detective Roy Franklin, who would have to settle for co-habitation with Jessica who wants to delay marriage indefinitely. Roy himself, I believe was a pseudo-replacement for Tucker Foster, who had been romantically involved with Heather.

Reading reports that newly elected Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, is considering hiring a special assistant to oversee an investigation into Trump's alleged attempts to overturn the election results for the state of GA. Someone mentioned both Leticia James and Fani Willis and said that Trump and co. have been worried about the wrong squad 😃.

Oh , I have been reading about the U.K. for a number of years now. I have family living in the U.K., a few of whom have worked for NHS, who told of how bad Brexit was going to be for NHS, and that was before the pandemic even emerged. I have noticed that the countries with the shakiest governance are the ones struggling to cope with this pandemic, either because of arrogance, incompetence, indifference or some lack of connection with reality, or a combination of these factors. In some way, poor governance seems to be at the root of it all.

I really enjoyed the layers of subtext in many of those two person scenes in the December 1985 episode. Jack and John, with Jack trying to fish for information under a layer of guilt, while appearing to be as cool as a cucumber. Oh what could have been between John and Johanna. And the tease of the possibility of a reconciliation between Dina and John. The subtext and subtle digs, verbal offense and defense between Nikki and Ashley, that starts out with subtle until it bursts into the open when Nikki decides to 'take the gloves off' and Ashley's steely veneer dissolves once Nikki has left her office. I also love the twist of Esther playing the "Devious Maid" in that tiny bit of reversal. Too often, the writing relied on making Esther into a dingbat but I much prefer her as a somewhat cunning figure, trying to look out for her own interests. The scenes between Casey and Brock were well done, light-hearted at the outset but eventually went into deeper concerns. I couldn't help but think of what a shame it is to have neither character on the canvas now. It was always nice to see Brock come for visits, here and there. There are times that Nikki has clearly needef her sister-- the MS story might have had more depth with Casey around, although I shudder to think of other possible ways that Casey might have been used in Newman storylines. MAB or Mal might have orchestrated an affair between Casey and Victor while Nikki battled MS, ugh! And in this episode, signs of a growing bond between Traci and Brad. This is kinda the beginnings of the 'corporatization' of the Y&R canvas, isn't it? With a greater emphasis on the wealthy and the well-heeled of Genoa City, and the strivers (Brad) trying to get in and (Jill) others trying to cement their place. Speaking of Jill, I giggled a little at Jill literally ball dressed up with no place to go, wearing sparkles and spangles as she sits around in her hotel suite.

It seems almost completely anti-climactic that people are belatedly realizing how terrivly destructive this man is, when I think about how some of us knew from before he was elected just how much we stood to lose, and I mean human life, at that. I try not to contemplate this too often because when I do, it causes all those feelings of anger and betrayal that I felt the morning after the election to come flooding back. This Op-Ed written by Michelle Goldberg perfectly encapsulates my thoughts on this very belated judgement and meting out of consequences.

It probably helped that, even though Paul and Andy owned the detective agency where Amy, Jazz and Tyrone worked, there didn't appear to be much of a hierarchy. Also, they were pretty much in the same age group and with the exception of Lauren, mostly either middle class or aspiring to the middle class. Things evened out a bit more when you think of the fact that, if Paul was Amy's boss, Amy's father was Paul's father's boss, which sort of had an equalizing effect. Contrast that to Neil Winters, who, even as he became Victor's right hand man, Victor was very much Neil's boss for many years. Even Brad Carlton, who supposedly was on a similar level, really wasn't, since he had already married into the Abbott family and had his status elevated. I enjoyed when the Winters family celebrated Christmas as a family, even if they had those celebrations in that kitchenette, as VR referred to it but, at times, it just seemed as if integration of the Black characters onto the canvas became plodding at times, sometimes feeling a little contrived. The actors handled those situations pretty well though, filling in the gaps, finessing the deficiencies

This whole entire vaccine rollout has been an unmitigated disaster. Now, we have the very real aspect of the most vulnerable and in need of vaccination having to wait behind scores of rich and well-heeled people who cut in front of the line. More of America's vast inequality on display. Other than Brazil, who got the Chinese-made vaccine that's only half effective, I don't think another country has handled this pandemic more poorly than the U.S.

I definitely don't believe that there was any deliberate attempt to mislead but I do believe that the messaging got muddled along the way, perhaps a lack of communication in the midst of a harried, long and fraught election season. I do agree that they really just need to bump up the individual relief payments to 2K. It would be better than having to explain and over explain how and why their messaging went sideways to befuddled and possibly irritated Americans expecting $2,000. About Politico, I probably read 5 articles of theirs per year (if that), so I doubt that anything they say, or write permeates much of the consciousness of the average person. It all feels a bit too "Inside Baseball" to me.

How could I have forgotten that Lauren Koslow was on Y&R?? I know I was really young but that's crazy! The first time I remember having seen her was on B&B. One of these soap podcasts really needs to find Alex Donnelly and ask her about her time on Y&R. I'm intrigued by her chemistry with Terry Lester and wonder what it was like to work with him. Controversial take, but I think that Y&R was much better at organically intermingling their Black characters with the rest of the characters at this time, even with the few Black characters that the canvas had back then, compared to what they would become in future.