DramatistDreamer

He truly sounds convincing as someone who has lost what's left of his mind. Part of me wonders whether he thinks this might help him if/when those crimimal indictments happen, perhaps his lawyers can try to convince a judge to declare him mentally incompetent. In any case, he sounds wild and desperate, not resolute. He truly should've been removed from office after impeachment. Shame on the people who made it possible for him to remain.

I wonder whether an actual Latino actor would have thought the character bordered stereotypes too closely. I didn't have a problem with Boynton, although, on a few occasions, I did sometimes find myself unintentionally laughing at things in his performance that weren't meant to be funny. Most of the Montegan characters were played by Latinos (except for Finn), it might been more effective if Tonio had been portrayed by a Latino actor.

It's right where his "Law and Order" title is, in the dumpster.

Thanks @Soapsuds but I am much better now. I feel for his loved ones more than anyone else.

Victor Gialanella, who went on to write for daytime soaps, talks about his play that became a Broadway musical that would be included in a very exclusive club-of shows that closed on their opening night. Oh how I love a good yarn about an expensive Broadway flop!

The national murder rate is now the highest it has been in 20 years. Slavic Village and Cleveland's East Side is but one example of the degradation and deterioration of the social contract that is taking place in America. Indifference by the public may also be because the exent of the damage hasn't yet been made explicit. That may take months or even years to unwind. The incoming administration may make this clearer once they are in the White House. Then the general public may begin to care much more.

This GOP mini-insurrection feels like a distraction, tbh. Meanwhile, the U.S. systems have been hacked to death by the Russians and the extent of the damage continues to unfold.

Sad but true. The strange thing is that, chasing dollars has limits. The blockbusters and franchise movies may do great individual box office $$$ but the industry overall continues to lose money, year over year. It's similar to the U.S. economy, that has benefited some individuals with vast wealth, while the majority of the country's wages have either stagnated or fallen. Not a healthy picture overall. And that was before the pandemic, which I suspect has changed movie-going habits for awhile. Since there have been no investment in building a cinema culture, in about at least generation, it will be interesting whether the entertainment industry decides to revert to their old systems that were already in decline, or try something new-also whether they feel that they'll have a real choice in the matter of how they respond (Narrator: "there's always a choice).

That's great news @Taoboi ! Please continue to be vigilant in taking care of yourself. Thanks to everyone who has been sending me kind condolences. I've actually been talking about it with mutual friends and acquaintances, so I am no longer keeping feelings inside, which has provided a bit of release.

Barbara was never and could never stay a vixen, just like she could never remain a heroine/ingenue perpetually. It is par for the course that the character would have a reset. All I'm saying is why not embrace the journey while you're at it? Technically, JR Ewing was one note but that didn't stop him from embracing the role and all that came with it. Which is likely why Larry Hagman landed on the covers of magazine and decades after Dallas went off the air, people still remember the character.

Speaking of bringing all the smoke, this lady wasn't afraid!

Where would Ivanka run for Congress? Surely not NYC. Maybe a wisp of a chance if she ran on Staten Island before the demographics thoroughly change, as has already been happening but nobody else can stand her in NYC. Better take that to Florida or somewhere else.

See, I didn't see it as Barbara trying to get Tom back. At all. I saw it as Barbara burning through the vestiges of her former life as a doormat and put upon wife. People seem to forget that she interjected herself even more between Brian and Shannon. Now, you can make a case for her wanting Brian back, even going so far to plot a surprise to bust up Shannon and Brian's wedding. If you saw the scenes between Barbara and Margo where Barbara accused Margo of bringing about the trouble in her marriage, by not being a good wife to Tom, you'll see that it was more about her relationship to Margo, rather than Tom. If it was about wanting Tom, the tension and enmity would not have continued when Barbara was with Hal, but it did. AFAIC, it was more about old wounds between Barbara and Margo bearing fruit. Another thing, these actors contradict themselves. In an interview, Colleen said that she spent her first several episodes apologizing to various characters, because apparently, the character previously caused a lot of tumult and promptly left town. Apparently, Barbara was no angel even from the earliest incarnation of the character, so Colleen should've known what time it was, 😂. Now, had she won an Emmy (and quite frankly, she should have been nominated for her performance), she likely would've felt differently. It's likely the reason why unfortunately these soaps usually deferred to the men to play the most complex characters-- most of the women just seemed as if they didn't want that smoke, lol.

There has been some talk about not seating those electeds in the convening of the new Congress. I'm going to need less talk about it and more 'be about it'. There needs to be clarity on the consequences that will result from such an action and the consequences need to be steep.

The writing was just so bad! I mentioned this in the ATWT thread some time ago, but I remember a sequence where Lucinda and Craig were in her office discussing some forgettable topic and the scenes were just so strained. They were clearly trying but the scenes fell flat, which struck me as sad, especially since, back in the day, Lucinda and Craig scenes were always guaranteed 🔥🔥, but this time--no spark whatsoever. They may as well have talking about the weather.

This should be implemented in every state.

There was an episode of 21 Jump Street, can't remember which season, (maybe the third season?) where Liz Kiefer (GL) played a woman who was getting married and gets a surprise visit her ex, Det. Hanson (Johnny Depp). Another soap actor who also appeared on 21 Jump Street, around the same season or the next, a post-ATWT Brian Bloom, who played an antifascist, anti-racist campus firebrand.

Interesting article, I happened to come across. It describes how an award winning director's documentary about the crown prince of KSA was rebuffed by, pretty much every major streaming platform out there. At the root cause-- the quest for maximum profits from deals made abroad, even in countries where oppressive regimes are in control. The following quote, in a nutshell describes this aspect. Someday there's got to be an honest discussion about Hollywood over-dependence on franchise movies, in addition to focusing on almost exclusively on making corporate profits, and this has inevitably weakened film culture in America.

America's inhumane, overcrowded and little-considered prison system is really buckling under the weight of the pandemic.

Lucinda and Barbara had an interesting relationship, especially in their early years. You got the sense that Barbara looked up to Lucinda (and became a sort of protege) and Lucinda seemed to genuinely like Barbara, so much so that Lucinda held back from any retaliation when she discovered that Barbara had been having an affair with her son-in-law Tonio. Things changed when Lucinda's "It's just business" ethos caused her to do to Barbara what she essentially did to Steve Andropoulos, which was to take advantage of a vulnerable proprietor and vulture the company. On most other soaps, this type of storyline would likely be written for men, but I like the fact that it was written for two women and in such an organic way.

The optics of this... Certainly not a vote of confidence for Johnson.

Thanks for the well-wishes, @Khan @DRW50 2020 was a tough year for all of and the loss of live has been unfathomable. It's probably a combination of that and feeling momentarily overwhelmed. We will all get through this. From the looks of it, Great Britain barely knows what it's doing as well.

Don't want to use the word "disaster" but this vaccine rollout has been far from ideal, to say the least.

Auntie Vicky gets the job done. Had things gone differently, she likely would have been the passionate advocate that the daytime soaps needed. The kind of advocate that might have gotten the genre the respect it needed but never got. I'm not even talking about staying on the air vs. cancellation, I am talking about being regarded as the backbone of daytime television and providing the blueprint for a lot of primetime television too and that acknowledgement that daytime soaps had an important place in the cultural landscape.

Just found out that a colleague died of COVID-19 a few days ago. I hadn't been in touch with him for a number of years. At first, I felt oddly numb and then I began to remember be bits, hos personality quirks and moments of kindness and generosity and it made me smile, even giggle but now, I feel inexplicably and unbelievably down.