DramatistDreamer

Considering the fact that he was the only headwriter that I remember ever penning a story line in which a black man is shot dead by he police, I think that had he lived into, even the late 1990s, Marland would have written a full-fledged, all out story about a resident in Oakdale who also happens to be a black man who is killed by the police and the fall out in Oakdale that happened as a result. Marland used to have a way of dabbling in certain storylines only to write full-fledged stories years later, perhaps when he felt that he would have a freer hand.

GL tried to make Ann Hamilton's Mindy some type of 90s version of Annie Oakley. I just remember there were many scenes of her Mindy at Cross Creek taking target practice with a hunting rifle and wearing waders while fly fishing. It was quite a departure from the ultra-femme versions of Mindy that had come before. Although Smith had chemistry with a lot of actors that you wouldn't guess that she would. She had surprising chemistry with Benjamin Hendrickson in the scenes that I saw them in, as well as Andrew Kavovit, Scott Bryce, and Jon Hensley, Anthony Herrera and Greg Beecroft probably most of all. Those characters were nothing alike yet she had chemistry with them all.

Nope, Tesreau's Mindy would more likely have reached up on tiptoe and popped Roger in the jaw after stomping on his foot, if Roger ever made a move, lol.

And he's getting a multitude of pushback in his Mentions, as it should be. It's getting real across the pond. I'm considering the source but still...

White supremacists and neo Nazis have always been 'all in' with domestic terror from the beginning so it is of absolutely no surprise that they'd be chaos makers in any situation where there is mass violence, especially with this current administration that appears to defend violent their actions. Despite Trump's attempts to back away from that quote about the shooting following the looting, the fact remains that he instinctively and freely quoted the words of an avowed white supremacist.

The people who want to wreak the most havoc are the least likely to suffer the fallout. It wouldn't surprise me if there were/are many 'Bernie Bros.' among those crowds inciting violence. They're the main proponents of 'burning it down'.

Eileen is deserving of a solo livestream. I hope she is free to talk about the good and the bad.

Thanks @DRW50 I guess I'd better watch that video before it "vanishes". Bumping this onto a new page.

From the beginning, I knew Trump was going to be an unmitigated disaster who brought a lot of destruction and suffering. Still, I cannot put into words how badly things are going right now.

I suspect that this might have been because headwriters had abandoned the art of doing a detailed story projection and may have run into problems and either shortened/ended storylines earlier than anticipated. Hillary Bailey Smith did a great solo interview on a podcast for one of those soap magazines (or is it the only soap magazine at this point?) and she mentioned that Doug Marland used to write these highly detailed story projections that would encompass at least a year or more. I think that is why he was able to construct a story that went on for months and at times a year+ and keep it going. I suspect that all the old school head writers likely did detailed and expansive story projections. The great thing with a story projection that is highly detailed is that you can present it to other writers and everyone can really scrutinize it and it allows others to 'dig in' and add even more detail. Believe it or not, the more detail you put into it, the more freedom you have to make adjustments and 'tweaks' to each story when necessary. And a detailed story projection really helps when you have multiple stories occurring simultaneously. ATWT, toward the last decade had really poor B and C stories--hell, they could barely keep an A story going! That told me that the head writers in the last decade had likely ceased doing any type of detailed and expansive story projections, that is, if they were doing them at all. I actually think that none of the soap head writers do detailed story projections any more. Many look like they are making things up as they go along, flying by the seat of their pants.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would choc it up to desperation. A lot of people seemed to think that any criticism would result in automatic cancellation of the show, even though that was not how it worked. There were angry letters and far stronger criticism of stories and characterizations for decades and the show survived and thrived because the show was fundamentally still a really great show at its core. Criticism, phone calls and letters are not going to destroy a great show. I think that many fans know, whether they would admit it or not, that the show was on a razor's edge of cancellation for those last several years and they were scared that the World would stop Turning. So any peep of discontent was squelched in favor of pretending that the content was good quality, hoping that would be enough to keep the show on air. Scott Holmes said it best, as bad as it was, he would've kept doing the show had it remained because of the security the job gave him. For many fans, the presence of the show provided them a measure of security by just being on air five days a week.

Well, God bless Scott Holmes for speaking those truths! The quality of the show was not good in those final years. Whenever I tried to say it, there would inevitably be one or two persons who would try to paint me as a hater and a negative force. Who better to testify than someone who was actually living the experience?! Holmes came onto the show when the show was still fire, so he would know when exactly the standard dropped.

I worry about both my brothers too, one has dreadlocks. The other brother was once arrested for driving a "stolen vehicle" that, it turns out legally belonged to our eldest brother (the one with the dreadlocks) who had loaned him to drive. The charges were dropped after my brother spent the night in jail. So, yes, I very much understand that sense of worry, which I also feel for my nephews. Lately though, I also worry for my nieces and whenever I next go out because black women are gunned down and assaulted by the police too, although those reports tend not to get as much media attention. Man, this must hit differently for you right now. I hope you have some emotional support right now.

Do you remember at what minutes this happened? That I'd like to see, lol! I don't really want to watch the entire video though, I just want to skip that that part.

It really was. I just saw the playback around lunchtime today. I only wish that Sony and all these soap opera production companies could see the value in these livestreams and allow these hosts to use video clips. Instagram has a 90 second rule for copyright protection of music, perhaps something could be worked out on YouTube for video clips? Being able to see clips from the actors' scenes truly enhances the discussion, imo. I'd low-key love for Scott DeFreitas to moderate those Locher Room discussions. He was really good in the Don Hastings/Kathryn Hays discussion.

I'll be skipping that one. I know we all have our critiques on Michael Fairman (with good reason) but he could really lead a class on how to do these Zoom discussions with soap stars well. Alan needs to learn the art of moderating a discussion as well as utilizing audio visual aides on screen.

There are still a lot of well done episodes missing from YouTube and/or haven't been seen since their original airing. I wish someone would've asked Kathryn Hays if she had a copy of the Labor Day episodes where Kim went through labor and gave birth to Christopher at the cabin. That is among the most sought after episodes on ATWT and it would be a kick if she actually had it somewhere on VHS or something.

Was this the early 00s? She was asked? I didn't know she had been asked back in the early '00s. Since Bryce wasn't playing Craig, it probably wasn't worth the return stint for her, especially having just had her second baby.

People truly are fed up. The deaths keep happening, over and over and over and over and all people did was criticize peaceful protesting because protesters 'took a knee' and it made some folks uncomfortable. Well, now a man has died after 'taking a knee' to his throat. Trump is exactly the worst possible person to sit up in the White House in this type of combustible situation. The. Worst.

No words.

And that's really the difference between stage and screen. On stage, the written word is the alpha and the omega, sets and stage production are the icing but you can stage a powerful production with practically nothing on stage (believe me, I know). It stands in contrast to television where no matter how good the writing may be, you really can't pull off a convincing production without... well, production--set pieces, proper lighting, wardrobe, hair and makeup to help set the scene. On soaps, in particular, it's very important. Yeah, you can still have stunning, engrossing dialogue and cheap sets and it could still be darn good but think about how distracting it has been anytime you've watched an actor on screen with horrible makeup, wardrobe and set pieces that look as if they were made of plywood. It has the effect of taking away from the overall performance. I would never diminish the effect that Calhoun's work had on the show, it is very much present on the screen with some of the show's best performances.

One aspect that doesn't get discussed enough is how many actors either wanted to leave because they had other opportunities that they wanted to explore or that they simply wanted time off from the grind of soaps, which is understandable but often creates huge challenges for the writing of storylines. I was watching a string of episodes from '94 over the weekend and in terms of Terry Lester, I will say that, despite how disappointing the conclusion turned out to be, Lester really had chemistry with pretty much every actor he shared scenes with. I saw him in a scene with Scott DeFreitas (Andy) and appreciated how well both actors played off of each other. It was nice to see both actors invested despite the scene being quite brief. I missed much of the time that this character was on the canvas but from what I've seen, much of early Samantha seemed like a lot of filler. I didn't see much of the show when they put her with Kirk.

These ATP players are getting on my last nerve with all this rampant ignorance.

Marcy reminds me of an early blueprint for Carly, in some way.