DramatistDreamer

Netflix from the mid 2000s to 2014 was a pretty good service, in the fact that you could find quite a few indie hidden gems that you really couldn't find elsewhere. Over the last few years there has been a big push for big names, in terms of directors and showrunners, not to mention over-emphasis on algorithms and other nonsense metrics. It happened (in a slightly different way) with terrestrial network TV, it happened with cable TV ("150 channels and nothing to watch?") and it's happening online with online streaming. Everyone's focused on Netflix because it has become a behemoth but much of the same can be said of Amazon (perhaps on a more modest scale) especially if you go back and read the criticisms of Transparent (even before the sexual harassment scandal), which was at least good. The Man In The High Castle but does anyone remember Alpha House? Hand of God? Let's not even get into the stuff with Woody Allen's contract with Amazon, although I suspect the lawyers will get into it as the lawsuit progresses. It's the nature of TV, quite frankly to go through periods of fresh and stale. There's that old joke (or is it an adage?) about TV being referred to as a Medium, because it is neither Rare nor Well-Done.

Now that Floridians have voted to restore voting rights to former felons (excluding rape and murder, of course), perhaps it was inevitable that the state would try to find a workaround in which to disenfranchise more people.

Just when you thought you knew all about this character named Justin Gimelstob, there are articles like this one that drop even more nuggets that make you say "ugh". Justin Gimelstob: the chequered history of the man who wants to take over tennis “He is very loud and energetic, and maybe you like it or don’t,” said Ivan Ljubicic, a former world No.3 who served alongside him. “The board meetings were never very quiet when he was around.”

@Khan I think the model for online streaming has gradually but definitively become predicated on 'binge-viewing'. At first, I thought that binge-viewing was a gimmick, a way for streaming platforms like Netflix to differentiate themselves from broadcast networks with Netflix's 'all at once' model of releasing episodes. Even though binge-watching didn't begin with online-- it began with DVD release of seasons by popular shows and people's consumption of multiple episodes in one sitting--online streamers like Netflix made it "a thing" that they could capitalize on by marketing themselves as a platform that allowed subscribers to binge to their hearts' content. I don't really associate terrestrial, network TV as binge-able or promoting binge-watching, I actually think the networks want to promote the opposite-- a SLOW viewing model, where episodes are released one by one and viewers savor them. I think the episodes tend to move slower these days because executives likely want to the shows to feel as though they are giving viewers a chance to get an "in" to the series wherever they are, without feeling lost, giving the viewer a chance to get acquainted with the show and 'catch up' no matter where in the season the viewer begins to watch the show. It's more of a strategy to attract new viewers, who generally feel that if they miss the first few episodes, they may not bother to start watching the series--this is those networks' efforts to ingratiate their shows to those viewers.

This is vile.

I like Sam Elliott and I Iike Debra Winger. I could not make it through more than one episode of that show. I'm really out of the Hollywood loop because until last year, I knew almost nothing about Masterson, other than he was said to be a Scientologist because of that HBO documentary, most likely. I didn't know that he was a predator.

Ideally ODAAT should've have to option to have been released the way a traditional sitcom was--on a weekly basis. Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act is released on a weekly basis. When you have episodes that are choc-full of content that can get emotional or have intense moments (a la ODAAT) it might have been preferable to allow the viewers to take in one episode per week. One thing I really resented was how Netflix made bingeing into their model of how successful a show is for the majority of their series television. It was as if you had to watch at least 5 episodes in one weekend or the show was under threat of cancellation. Well, I don't like that threat hanging over a show like the sword of Damocles. I prefer to watch three episodes in a weekend, or two episodes or even one in a weekend, if that's what I feel like doing. Also, am I really to believe that The Ranch, that Ashton Kutcher series is really doing all that well? I hear almost nothing about that show and haven't for at least a year. Maybe it's better than I thought.

When I took a course on writing the TV sitcom, you learn that the comedy and the pathos are always heightened because the format is so condensed, compared to an hour-long serial. Machado has chops. Can she sing? Lin-Manuel should consider her for the stage. She's small but she has boundless energy. Not every show is going to appeal to everybody. I hated Full House and rarely thought it funny or entertaining but I respect people's right to enjoy it and was happy for the people who got to see it rebooted for the time.

This looks like something that would've appeared in TV Guide too.

Great promo ad. https://classicsodcovers.tumblr.com/post/183515980908/classicsodcovers-theres-more-to-come

No, you're not the only one. I found myself trying to hazard a guess as to whether Cooper and Kayzer were in the midst of their dalliance/relationship at that time. Cooper played it mostly as an intimacy borne of dependence but there was an intimate quality to their interactions in those scenes. I guess it doesn't help, knowing all that BTS subtext.

You're in Australia, right? That's a shame. Thinking about that post that I made, I probably shouldn't have made a generalization about New Zealanders, in general but keep it to those who were directly affected by the mosque attacks on Friday. Most likely, right now they have far pressing concerns on their minds, like burying their dead. It just reminded me about how just days after 9/11 many in the U.S. were already beating the war drums and most New Yorkers (myself included) were just concerned about how we were going to pull our daily lives back together into something that resembled a normal routine.

Can someone please explain how Chuck Todd still has a job?

The New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern gives me hope that New Zealand will emerge from this tragedy with stronger systems in place for preventing this type of tragedy in that country going forward.

Unfortunately, Rush Limbaugh got there already. Yesterday, against my better judgement, I decided to see why Limbaugh was trending. Apparently, he is trying to float the conspiracy theory that the mosques shootings are part of some leftist plot to get people to blame right-wingers. How this man could keep any kind of following is beyond me, he is truly disgusting.

Sadly, the death total is now 50.

Most New Zealanders likely no nothing about Ilhan Omar, nor do they care, I suspect. Why does U.S politics affect everything, even who gets to grieve about events on the other side of the world? This reminds me of my time as a New Yorker during 9/11 when most of the country, outside of NYC was already war-mongering while people inside Manhattan were still mourning and struggling to find a way to cope. Less than 20 years later, first responders are being cut off from healthcare with nary a word from anyone, except John Stewart. It's all leaving such a bitter taste in my mouth. People talked and used tragedy to make political and real world war but very few actually cared to the people who suffered that day and the days afterward. It's just striking that people have become even more coarse and desensitized to mass killing since then. Silvio Berlusconi has been untouchable in Italy for well over a decade. I'm dubious that something significant will come of this but one can always hope.

I now understand that the woman who confronted Chelsea was wearing a Bernie Sanders T-shirt. Well, that explains everything. Sadly, I now realize that America has become so desensitized to carnage, especially carnage wrought by gun violence that there is no longer any genuine recognition of the dead and the victims of mass gun violence. It's just straight to which campaign can best capitalize from verbal spats. No respect for the dead and dying or even those who cling to life to try to recover as best as they can from tragedy. Not much thought going into the cause and effects of these heinous acts. Just more feuding.

Indian Wells is an entire clusterf*ck and it's what they deserve. They never apologized to the Williams Sisters and their karma has been bad ever since.

That's what irritates me the most about all of this. Someone said "...what we're not going to do, is make this all about a white woman's fragility!" If these women hadn't come at Chelsea Clinton, guess what...this entire discussion of defending her would be nil and non-existent! Why take time away from a vigil to try to hash out your beef with another attendee? Why not save it for another time? Why not invite someone like Chelsea Clinton to another townhall to discuss Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and their corrosive effects? This entire incident was unnecessary, through and through. Have some regard for the value of the lives lost and the lives that still hang in the balance because of this act of terrorism.

Sad. Maybe the writers themselves were self-aware of the schlock they were trotting out.

At least Marland created storyline possibilities, even if it included some and left some legacy characters off the canvas. The writers who came after him could've done with bringing back Dee Stewart because the mid-late 90s and beyond was clearly starved for more expansive storytelling. Even as Marland was (rightly) criticized for focusing too much on Lily, I thought it was even worse with the writing regimes after him because most of the stories (with one or two exceptions) were not really compelling. The mid-late 90s, early '00s would've been a good time to bring back Dee and the quads when you had Alison on the canvas. It would've been greatly appreciated since the show had become so dull by the late 90s. Also, after Marland died, no Penny right? Did Don Hughes ever visit Oakdale?