DramatistDreamer

I won’t list the ones that have already been listed so: ATWT: Bryant Montgomery and Marshall Travers- yes Marshall Travers, they took a charismatic (albeit a cad), good looking character who had smoldering chemistry with Jessica Griffin and reduced him to a rapist and throwaway character. One of the few. Black men on the show. Just disgusting. I have spoken at length in the ATWT thread about how much of a mistake I believed killing off legacy kid Bryant Montgomery to be. I also hated that the character SORASed, but that’s another story. Y&R: John Abbott and Nathan Hastings. The show should have given John Abbott a few more years before expiring the character. Bringing him back as a ghost to “haunt” Jack (which amounted to yammering on and nagging him) was beyond silly. I am not disparaging the idea of the paranormal and connection with the supernatural but Jerry Douglas was still able to handle the work, why not really use him, even if in a reduced capacity. Imagine if Nathan had been maimed by the accident instead of merely killed and done away with? Olivia would have had more to play off of if, as a doctor who had sworn an oath the provide care now had to care for this cheating husband who she now detests? Imagine if she had this emerging budding friendship with Malcolm that’s clearly turning romantic, while having to deal with this? The character still could leave, or be bundled off to a rehab facility in Switzerland eventually but the departure of Hastings always seemed so hasty and abrupt, which despite his vile act, never gave proper closure to a character who had been on the canvas since the early/mid 1980s, nor did it give proper closure to his relationship with Olivia.

Admittedly, I don’t pay much attention to polls and haven’t in years. It’s all too “Inside Beltway” for me. I cannot summon the energy to be this fixated on American politics this early.

Of course. The irony however, was not lost on me that the slip up was following Biden’s pushback against the council’s allegations of the classified documents found being were a result of age related memory problems. Unfortunately the Trump cult are blind to his obvious lack of character, lack of discernment and lack of intelligence. The Biden coalition tends to check for things like these. Hopefully this incident will fade…and quickly.

The BBC just did a story on the special counsel’s report and Biden’s response, immediately highlighting a slip up Biden made, mixing up the president of Egypt with the president of Mexico. I cringed.

^^Also, it was the was the 1980s when Wham! could be considered peak masculinity among the teen set.

Remember the mail room? I guess no one gets mail or any type of delivery anymore.

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.