DramatistDreamer

Giuliani has been ordered to pay the two Georgia election workers $148 million. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/giuliani-ordered-to-pay-148-million-for-defamation-of-election-workers

They don’t seem to know how to write for even middle schoolers, let alone teens and young adults. MCE and JT are old enough to have the kids they have and yet, the show still can’t write for them. Phyllis and Daniel strained incredulity in regards to their ages, yet that didn’t seem to stop Daniel from getting at least one memorable story when he was supposedly a young adult. The writing is just totally absent for all but the core I.e. older Newman and Abbott characters.

Another reason why I wish Frasier would have been forced into a situation where he would have had to go back to giving psychotherapy on the radio. Similar to when Martin’s injury forced him and Frasier into a life they didn’t expect, having to move in with Freddy post-op and work in a job similar to one he left would not be the life Frasier or Freddy ever planned for. If the series wanted bring David in a subsequent season as a transfer, there would be no silly conflict of interest, although David could be neurotic about whether his dad or uncle might have pulled strings to get him in, or whether it was his excellent grades that actually made the difference in him being accepted.

@FaulknerSo the plot thickens. Can’t say I am surprised, somehow I knew it would come to this when a few days ago, I read that Halep was mounting her appeal.

Despite the fact that I have taken numerous breaks from watching this show, I still doubt that anyone will be able to answer that question in the affirmative. This show has kept a certain over 50s generation in a state of arrested development, which has put the next generations of characters on the margins with no chance to flourish or even lead memorable stories, which has kept the series basically stagnant. Add to the likes of Noah, Moses and Faith. I understand why these shows don’t really want babies beyond a source of conflict but they SORAS them, supposedly to be able to expand storytelling, but then use them briefly and then quickly shuttle them off. Now, here is Daniel’s daughter Lucy who has no peers and will seemingly only ever hang out with her parents. Very odd. It feels like the last developed generation of young adult were the Glow By Jabot kids. I thought that reliquary story was awful but at least a case could be made for Colleen and JT being two of the leading characters in that story, not to mention their parts in other larger stories. Noah has had nothing on that scale.

Oh, that was so sweet, it put a smile on my face the entire time watching that video. Thank you for sharing this @Wendy. I am going to go to YouTube and send the video to some others who I know can use a little emotional lift.

I agree with this. Interestingly enough, I was just reading about the term “cameo porn” and many television shows seem to suffer from this, but that’s a different subject. I do like the actor who portrays David but like Niles and Daphne, he and Freddy could mention him in conversation on occasion, but any appearances, I think would be better for a second season. Right now, as much as I like the actor, he doesn’t have much to do besides being cute and goofy.

Why thank you @Khan! I stopped and thought about what you expressed in your post and it became clear to me that the less complicated the premise, the more flexibility for actual storytelling. Thinking about it even further, I think the reboot relies too heavily on backstory with unfamiliar characters. The original series, Frasier really only had backstory with family, his dad and brother, the rest of the characters, Daphne and Roz are fresh, clean slates. The reboot should have maintained those distinctions- Freddy and David should be the only characters with which Frasier has any longstanding personal history, everyone else should be brand new characters to Frasier as well as to viewers. And you were right about the questionable aspect of Frasier and Alan supposedly being good friends. It would’ve been more passable had we discovered post-op that Frasier done research and discovered that Alan and he share an Alma mater before the surgery, which initially gave him confidence that the surgery would be a success but Frasier now has doubts because of the slow progress in his recovery. But yeah, the whole buddy angle doesn’t quite strike the right note imo. Oh well, I have a 3 month promo for Patamount+, so there’s always original recipe Frasier.

Honestly, the opening premise could have been something as simple as Frasier being in Boston to visit Freddy, or on business or some combination and suffering a serious medical crisis like needing back surgery and Freddy reluctantly taking his dad in so that he could recuperate. In the original series, Frasier was known to have back problems. He could have suffered a series of debilitating spasms while he’s in Boston. They could have opened the series with a post operative Frasier having an uncomfortable conversation with an evasive Freddy, neither one wanting to acknowledge the reality of Frasier being stuck in Boston for now. It would have been similar to Martin, after needing hip surgery, but of course, Frasier’s injury would have been doing something Frasier-like such as an out of control squash game or a super aggressive antiques auction, rather than a bullet in the hip like his father. Alan could have been the orthopedic surgeon who Frasier won’t stop pestering about his seemingly slow progress. Eve could have been the physical therapist who Freddy finds to help Frasier with his recovery process. Olivia, who could be any number of characters, could the executive of a satellite radio station (like Sirius) and wants to court Frasier to reprise his psychotherapy talk show, like the one he did in Seattle, not Chicago. Frasier not only sees that as a step backwards but post-op, he is literally on his back most of the day, but Olivia is undeterred and insists that when he makes enough progress, her opportunity may look a lot more enticing. It doesn’t so much bother me so much that Freddy didn’t choose a patrician career or lifestyle. I personally know a few Ivy and elite school graduates who became midwives, carpenters and artisanal bakers. And usually, those are the ones who come from financially comfortable and upper income families who don’t necessarily feel obligated to enter a high income and upscale career field. Completely off the train of discussion, where is Gil Chesterton? That actor was hilarious on the original Frasier series.

^^I have no idea. All I know is his uncle Vijay is being inducted into the International Tennis Hall Of Fame with the next class. I saw a video where they were both very emotional about it. Is this event in Vegas? I also see his Sister-in-Law Alison Riske, Danielle Collins and Asia Muhammad. It’s entirely possible that they are dating (does Patton have a tennis connection?) but Prakash has been known to travel with some high flying friends. I still wonder what he was doing in Texas with Venus, maybe they just happened to both be there.

Leslie Uggams who, according to IMDB appeared briefly on AMC in the late 1990s, is in a movie called American Fiction with Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Sterling K. Brown and Isa Rae and a host of others (really good cast). Here is Ms. Uggams talking about how a chance meeting and a desire expressed to Jeffrey Wright led to them working together in American Fiction.

Are we to assume that Nikki takes car service to and from the office? If she’s going to day drink, why doesn’t she just stay home? Audra has obviously been doing whatever work (what do they do anyway?) there is to be done at that company anyway. And Victor apparently doesn’t notice that Nikki has been swigging vodka from that bottle. This isn’t the first rodeo for any of these Newmans, so you’d think Victor, while he’s complimenting Nikki’s mental fortitude, would just say, as an extra safeguard, that he’s going to remove the alcohol from the bar. The story of Nikki’s alcoholic relapse is fast becoming a reductive one. Abby, skilled as she is in snatching other women’s men, had her eyes trained on Heather since she and Daniel walked into Society. Nate’s rushing to the office to work on…what? What do any of these companies actually do? I know Daniel’s video game can’t be the only product. Is Jabot still a cosmetics company? It seems like the only things that both these companies make are plans. And these plans seem to focus on fending off Tucker McCall. With all the competition in the cosmetics industry alone, Jabot should be strategizing on innovating products, creating new ones, improving existing ones. Geez, Fenty must be eating their collective lunch! Soon they’ll be like Max Factor, if they don’t pay attention. That is, no member of the family actually running the company.

That could be it. I noticed that he did something similar when he was on that short-lived sitcom with Patricia Heaton. His instincts and timing seemed off but it could have been the writing that time as well. And both he and Heaton both came off as quite hammy in that barely watchable series.

Andre Braugher too? Oh man, this is too much loss!

I don’t think that will be the case, I think future generations will be studying and watching the shows while discussing everything that went on behind the scenes with production and with the creators of these shows. As great as the Cosby Show was, could it have been even better had Cosby not been a predator? It’s already been a topic of intense discussion amongst writers how he might have negatively impacted spinoff series ADW by stomping on director Debbie Allen’s ambitions of incorporating Lisa Bonet’s pregnancy into Denise’s college experience and also keeping Maggie Lawton at a HBCU that was authentically Black. Not to mention the mess he made of the character once she returned to Brooklyn and married her off to a conservative navy officer (which never made a drop of sense to me). We can study the brilliance of the writing of the series’ early seasons but it is instructive to look behind the curtain to see the obvious errors that were made that may have impacted the shows that Cosby produced from there. I mean, even some Norman Lear shows were problematic behind the scenes and it affected what we saw onscreen (ahem, Good Times anyone?) so I think it’s actually really instructive, especially for future writer’s, directors and producers to study and discuss these topics in their fullness. (*the original Frasier had its issues too but we won’t get into that 👀)

Sorry to say, Kelsey himself is a big part of what has gone wrong with the series. If the writers had been strong enough to resist but they’re not, they gave too much deference to him and they will be left holding the bag. With Kelsey bragging about his love of Trump all over the place, it’s entirely possible that the remaining fans won’t care whether the show returns anyway. Honestly, I wish the series had attempted a spinoff featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell.

Josh Griffith has no sensibility of these types of nuances, which is why I am fine with not having Olivia back on the canvas, he’s only foul things up further. It’s nice to see Veronica Redd again but the show has done zilch with her/Mamie except have her roam around talking about uniting the family with little to no detail about her life in between visits. Were told she has made shrewd investments and that’s it.

This is the same country that had Fugitive Slave Laws. We’d like to believe that we live in a much different country, but do we? Some reportedly good news, for a change.

If the new writers refused any type of advice from the writers of the original series then that is unfortunate. From a writer’s perspective, I can see why they would want to make the new series a vision of their own making but if that is what they truly wanted then they should have veered away from the structure of the original series and done something different, like a dramedy. Before Bel Air started, there was a lot of grumbling about it not being The Fresh Prince of Bel Air but I knew it would work ever since I saw the pitch trailer because it was presented an image that was starkly different from the original series but intriguing and looked well done. Frasier doesn’t. I like the actors but the only new character who actually looks like he belongs in Frasier-world is David. Anders Keith has an adorable quality that really does seem like a cross between Niles and Daphne. Now if the creators of Frasier had listened to me and given Cam Winston his own series, the actress who plays Olivia would work nicely opposite Brian Stokes Mitchell.

He summons some really good feelings and memories.

The last times that I have watched scenes between Mamie, Devon and Lily, especially, I don’t see one hint of familial feelings toward Mamie. I have even heard each address her by her first name only and not by her honorific. Dru would have never allow this, Victoria Rowell would have slipped in a correction.

Lea Salonga (Lien Hughes #2, ATWT) will be performing with the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square. Broadway fans may also recall that Salonga performed as in the original production of Miss Saigon. I happened to catch Salonga’s final performance in the musical on Broadway.

Apparently, Netflix will be staging and streaming an exhibition featuring a match between Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, with additional participants to be announced. https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/11/23996783/netflix-tennis-rafael-nadal-live-sports-stream

Without even venturing into this thread, I read about the docuseries elsewhere, but I am glad you posted it here as I just thought about posting about it last night, lol. While reading about this docuseries, the first thought that came to mind was that I was glad that the creators care enough about this show and its legacy to do a documentary. My second thought was that, with about 4 decades of history, the American daytime drama still doesn’t have a really interesting, really expansive documentary series on the history of the daytime drama and what a shame that is! As a fan of the Degrassi series since the days of the Junior High series, I look forward to seeing this.

The Newmans are over-written for as characters. I am not referencing the quality, just the quantity. If they were going to go through all this trouble to bring a deceased daughter from a prominent family back to the canvas, I would have wanted her to be Colleen Carlton—at least Colleen has multiple connections to various other characters and would have provided much needed story for Traci Abbott. If written properly (and everyone has heard my ideas over the years), it would make a great umbrella story that would provide story for most of the characters on the canvas. As it stands now, this Eve story has pretty much siloed the Newman family with no perceived connection to any other characters on the canvas, beside maybe Michael.