DramatistDreamer

When Griffith fired the breakdown writers, was that a purely financial decision? Listening to posts about episodes from the past few days makes me believe that Y&R viewers may be living with that decision to fire the breakdown writing staff. It can’t all be about nickels and dimes all the time.

If we see Monica, Serena and Jennifer Capriati on the pickleball court, just say “Good Night” to the WTA.

It’s anyone’s guess what will come of this. ESPN, Fox and Warner Team Up to Create Sports-Streaming Platform

So, Steffi and Andre are more likely to be found on a pickleball court than a tennis court these days. https://www.tennis.com/baseline/articles/photos-graf-agassi-defeat-mcenroe-sharapova-1-million-at-pickleball-slam-2

Hinton Battle’s obituary states that, before the Tap Dance Kid he didn’t know how to actually tap. He faked a soft shoe then took lessons from a master tap dancer. Incredible! If anyone finds any video of Battle performing the Scarecrow in The Wiz can you please post? Thanks.

On the eve, of their general election, at least a dozen people die in two explosions in Pakistan. This is reminiscent of the 1990s. Unfortunately, violence has been ratcheting up in recent weeks, as the military (who has been in control, regardless of party in office) has been clamping down this year’s opposition parties.

@Soapsuds^^ Wow! Just last week, I read that Rune had let his other coach go and even the writers of the article assumed that Becker would remain Rune’s sole coach after that. I guess that is no longer the case. Both Rune and Ruud received a lot of hype. They’re still young but it makes me wonder where both Scandinavian players’ prospects lie ahead. Usually these type of coaching moves happen in the off-season. I think with Pegula turning 30 at the end of this month, it’s probably easy to figure out her motives for drastic changes. Rune, maybe this is just the way he’s built?

That’s interesting @Soapsuds. Coaching changes come at you fast, especially on the WTA side. I don’t know if it’s true that Witt expressed surprise but hey, it happens. Witt can be a good coach but there were years when I thought that Venus kept him on for too long and felt it cost her (although I realized that her Sjogrens really had her grasping for stability and consistency because the effects of the disease itself can be so unpredictable) but Witt’s publicly whining about certain aspects that were directly related to her autoimmune disease had me wishing she would have found another coach. I guess Pegula doesn’t intend to wait that long, she obviously wants a change.

Yeah, at this point, I don’t expect any changes to be made unless Y&R sunsets, then they could make a last ditch effort or some other change to look like they’re making some sort of effort. My mom is a senior and the reason I even know about ATWT and Y&R but she stopped watching Y&R ages ago and has expressed surprise that I even know about any of the storylines. Years ago, during a holiday, I turned on the television to Y&R in her living room and she said that she thought everything looked terrible. Although I had to agree, it made me a bit sad to realize that it was true.

I have read a few articles about this now and the fact that the only officials who actually had the courage to face the public were all Black is pretty insulting but on brand for the Ivy League (and most American universities and colleges, to be honest). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/04/stolen-and-disrespected-museum-inters-200-year-old-remains-of-black-philadelphians?ref=upstract.com

Nick Scotti will always be Tony for me. Crimson Lights with actual people?? CL doesn’t get that much foot traffic in a year these days.🤣

Because the immigrants are predominantly brown and non-European. I remember in the early 1990s, a teacher bringing in an issue of, Time or Newsweek with the cover story “The Browning of America” for discussion and I understood right then and there that America had a preoccupation with the nation becoming a predominantly nonwhite country. It’s the reason why, despite lionizing Reagan for his rhetoric and voodoo economics, Republicans are still irked with him over his one-time amnesty of undocumented immigrants (no one talks about the fact that undocumented immigrants from Ireland comprised a large number of undocumented workers then and well into the beginning of the 21st century). It’s also one of the reasons that no one mentions the number of pregnant Russian women were flocking to the United States to have their babies, conferring them with birthright citizenship, (until Russia invaded Ukraine and sanctions began) despite right-wing activists’ constant attempts to paint a picture of “anchor babies” as only coming from Mexican mothers. It’s ironic that limits are discussed (whatever that means) without having an honest conversation about genuine immigration policy reform, which would entail a discussion about why meat plants are allowed to use child labor of unaccompanied minors who came across the Southern border or why so many businesses and wealthy people use the “cheap” labor of undocumented workers. That would mean exploring legal pathways to formal residency and citizenship, which would effectively mean an end to labor exploitation and rock-bottom wages. The argument that pathways to legalization would encourage more border crossings doesn’t hold weight, primarily because the pathways would be for people who have been here for decades, working, having income tax extracted, while ineligible for a refund and raising their American born and/or childhood arrived children. The people screaming for small government don’t want the necessary personnel to be hired so that paperwork for work and student visas can be processed in a timely fashion so that maybe people can actually go back and forth, with an assurance that they won’t have to worry about getting detained on either side. Fixing immigration policy (or lack thereof) sounds like a good talking point but most of the people with the means to do so aren’t truly interested because the status quo is benefiting a lot of well-heeled and well connected individuals. Japan and China are homogenous societies that have spurned physical differences. China has a billion population, so it hasn’t yet reached crisis point, although their issues don’t have as much to do with a lack of immigration as it does with their preference for male boys over females leading to a demographics disaster with a shortfall of marriageable women. Japan, with a much smaller population is in full-blown demographics crisis. They are allowing some immigrants from Southeast Asia to study nursing, specifically in geriatrics to take care of their aging population but they still don’t want to offer citizenship. They are just now deciding to offer some workers residency so that the workers can bring spouses, children and possibly parents, as many nursing students have expressed doubts about staying beyond the minimum of years if they cannot bring family.

Okay, I am mistaken, I knew there was a time shift, mid season somewhere. I blame Unsung Hollywood, sometime watching the episode on Flip Wilson they gave the impression that the two shows went up against each other. Perhaps they didn’t mean literally but in a sense that both sitcoms, ostensibly about a Black family, were pitted against each other? Also, Jaleel White auditioned for the role of Rudy Huxtable, when according to Jaleel, Cosby wanted Rudy to be a girl and ultimately got his way. Oh well, the cast was likable (and the theme song was catchy as all get out) but it was a poor effort by CBS. Once the 1970s ended, it seems like CBS’s record with series featuring a predominantly Black cast was spotty at best.

And Barrett has been in the news lately with the recent debut of the biopic about Bob Marley. It’s sad that he was ill for what sounds like a long time but hopefully he will now be able to rest in peace. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/03/aston-family-man-barrett-bassist-with-bob-marley-and-the-wailers-dies-aged-77

CBS seems like the most ruthless network in this category, at least as it pertains to primetime? Charlie & Co—which starred Gladys Knight, Jaleel White and the late greats Flip Wilson and Kristoff St. John— a series that offered promise but never fully got is “legs” underneath it, by Season 2, was put against The Cosby Show, a ratings juggernaut. What were the programming folks at CBS hoping to achieve here? It doesn’t seem like they hoped to achieve success for the fledgling sitcom.

Is Danielle Unger in charge of the money and how it gets distributed? That seems to be the main focus of the show these days. Creative takes a back seat to cost issues, it seems.

People do realize that Steve Kent (is he still there?) or whoever is in that position is not interested in finding new talent, right? Please tell me that you understand this. Talent is easy to find. The writers in the ranks of (pre)professional stage and screen writing programs and alumni networks are out there and in the pipeline-if one is interested. Sony is really only interested in keeping the machine going by only doing enough to keep things going at minimum cost. There is nothing that they have done in the last decade to indicate that this is not the aim. Even Mal Young who was initially touted as being such a revolutionary choice was chosen more for his managerial skills, coupled with his presentation of something “new” to American daytime soaps, which was really akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

In the Pretty Baby docuseries, Brooke Shields had somewhat damning words for Zeffirelli’s directorial style on a particular scene during filming of Endless Love, which she found to be abusive. By that age, Shields had learned to be such a professional that, to most viewers, none of that showed up on screen. FWIW, it seems that none of her costars were aware of what happened to her, as it happened during an intimate scene that was filmed on a closed set.

I’d rather call you a host. They need to save the Daytime Personality moniker for the People’s Choice Awards, or another awards show where the public can vote. Daytime Personality sounds weird for an Emmy award. Will fans be voting in these categories? That’s the only way this would make sense to me.

Daytime Personality?? Can this genre sink any lower?

Oh man, this is sad news. There are a number of videos of people who had never seen Rocky reacting and loving the movie. Carl Weathers was such a charismatic presence on screen. A true onscreen action hero.

Sounds like something that would happen at an Elon Musk owned company.

Josh Griffith is infantilizing Ashley (as well as seemingly writing the beginnings of some sort of psychosis or mental breakdown, seemingly in a (failed) attempt to revisit and exploit Ashley’s history of mental health instability (as if someone of Ashley Abbott’s means didn’t have access to a good psychiatrist and effective therapy). Josh is infantilizing Ashley, the way he used to infantilize Sharon, the way he is also infantilizing Heather. In Val’s defense, she has had much better writing and an actual career that we saw her working on in her previous stints, so she wouldn’t have had time to handwring over Daniel’s indecisiveness. Also, that’s not a cold sore on Val’s lip, she’s had it for years and it’s the same type of mark that Eileen Davidson once had for decades until she either had it smoothed down or makeup artists started covering. I have contended for years that most of Y&R’s writers over the last 15 years haven’t a clue as to how to write women with any sort of nuance-it’s down to the most flattened stereotypes: fragile basket case, harpy-shrew, overly ambitious seductress/promiscuous, doormat or practically asexual presence/nonenity. JG is no different. He is simultaneously giving us lush/needy Nikki who Victor calls “baby” every five seconds while he reminds her to sit down(why not just buy her a fainting couch?), Angsty Ashley, who has taken to shouting at waiters in Parisian alleyways. Hapless Heather, who is practically using all her intellectual powers (instead of as the strong-willed, occasionally cunning and ruthless, brilliant lawyer that she was once written to be) to get Daniel to canoodle with her in public (and the stupidity of that hamfisted contrived scene if Lucy giggling behind the door, left ajar was the stuff of constant eye-rolling). They have Phyllis even acting like a collegiate with half the emotional intelligence, in a quest to do what? Mess with Christine (seemingly the only female character operating with operating with any autonomy-maybe LLB put her foot down or inspires some regard as a Bell?, as much as I like ZS, what I like about Audra has everything to do with Silver and nothing to do with how she’s written), mess with Danny, operating out of sheer boredom? Phyllis has never looked more brainless than she does now (one thing Phyllis never used to lack was savvy). For this reason, I only ever sporadically watch this show for the past 15 years. I haven’t touched upon Sally whose actress seems to have been given Sharon’s cast off storyline of bouncing between two brothers (feeling like a fool?).

An Op-Ed written by a former hostage of the October 7th attack offering an interesting and insightful perspective. You should be able to access this article freely. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/opinion/gaza-war-holocaust-shoah.html

On the first day of Black History Month, an op-ed piece by Charles Blow. The Dawn of a New Era of Oppression