DramatistDreamer

What happened to this “adopted” son was the first question that I had. I find the entire situation highly disturbing, almost as disturbing is the lack of probing into this. Hopefully there is some type of deep investigating reportage going on that we’re currently not privy to.

I absolutely agree with what you said here. For years, I have been somewhat exasperated by soap fans repetition of the same boilerplate reasoning behind the decline in popularity of daytime soaps to a single inciting event like the O.J. Simpson trial, rather than a number of factors that include the production companies behind these daytime soaps’ and their rigid adherence to the same format, plots and unchanging characterizations (pandering to the anachronistic idea of the mythical Midwestern housewife from the 1950s) for years on end. For years, I have believed that the idea of the supercouple was one of the best and perhaps the worst thing to happen to the daytime soap opera. It should have been a brief marketing campaign that lasted for about 48 months and dispensed with when it became limiting and tired, which it had obviously become by the very early 90s. If there was anything that soap production company executives should have doubled down on, it should have been the insistence that their viewers had not truly abandoned these shows but that time shifted viewing (viewers recording their favorite soaps on VCRs preset via timers) had become a bigger factor because of more women working outside the home and those numbers were not being recorded, and figuring out a way for those numbers to be factored into the ratings as DVR viewing is now factored into today’s ratings. I still think the executives and industry set the standards for how archetypes were and are written, especially female ones. There should have been room for all types of matriarchal figures, the way that there was room for patriarchal figures (Bob Hughes was a fatherly type and also a serial cheater, for instance) but there was an industry wide standard of having a warm, very nurturing matriarch. GL never allowed the likes of Vanessa to be a matriarch because, despite her being of age at the time, a matriarch wasn’t supposed to ever be ambitious in her career or even sexy enough to attract younger men. If you had an ambitious figure like an Alexandra Spaulding or a Lucinda Walsh who had any maternal feelings at all, it was usually presented as a weakness, a character flaw or something that the woman, as intelligent as she was, could never quite manage properly and despite repeated stories, the clumsy way these women could never seem to manage their maternal relationships with half the level of competence as they did their businesses. It was a sexist trope that needed to die with the evolution of more women in the workplace but it persists to this day.

More challenging but more interesting, just from the perspective of someone who once wrote a play about a mother who came off as domineering but had her reasons (whether the audience agreed with her methods or not). Perky would get very boring fast for me. I also think that, it didn’t have as much to do with a soap’s “DNA” as it was with executive interference, of which P&G soaps always seemed to experience more than their fair share.

If people can, it’s is really enlightening to read his memoir. He was crystal clear about his struggles and the sources as well as his knowledge that his struggles can and will help others and possibly avoid the struggles that he had endured. It might be too haunting to listen to the audiobook at this particular moment because he is the narrator and it is his voice that the listener will hear. His role as Sandy, Carol’s boyfriend is probably the first time many of us of a certain age group first noticed the presence and talent of Matthew Perry. A deeply charismatic and tragic character.

Did anyone read his recent memoir? A few months ago, I listened to the audiobook and it really seemed like he had been engaged in a life or death struggle to stay sober. R.I.P.

🤣 The arch tone of Pierce’s delivery is pretty memorable. It stayed with me. You know what’s truly ironic? Just after I wrote my post, episode 3 of the new Frasier series, Frasier uses that same moniker to describe himself when he mentions his job as television psychiatrist when he hosted his own show in Chicago before relocating to Boston. It wasn’t as funny as when Niles said it, in fact, if they hadn’t mentioned it several times in the episode, I might have missed it.

Maybe comical isn’t the right word, satisfying is more like it.

Unless Freddy has decided to rebel to purposely grate his parents. I could be coaxed into believing that it was possible if 1.) the characterization were not so heavy-handed and 2.) if there were some revelation that explained why Freddy is more like Martin than either of his parents, other than that brief period where he was a Goth kid. To me though, Freddy’s characterization is the least of the show’s problems because it’s easy to solve, through backstory or retcon—Frasier itself indulged in artful re-writing with the characterization of Frasier’s parents from how they were portrayed on Cheers, his mother especially. It’s really reductive that this series decided to retread the dead dad trope that was created in Cheers when Frasier claimed that his father Martin was dead, only to have to explain to Woody when he visited Frasier in the Frasier series. The bigger problem is that the show is trying to be a retread of the original Frasier series, instead of trying to do something new. IMO, the show should have shifted to a dramedy instead of the standard sitcom with canned laughter. A lot of people complained about Bel Air being so different from the original series The Fresh Prince of Bel Air but it worked and it worked well. I am not saying to change Frasier to a drama (although it worked for Ed Asher and Lou Grant) but a dramedy would have at least given the show, writers, actors the latitude to not be compared to the original Frasier series. And the cheese factor of canned laughter and forced punchlines wouldn’t be so apparently embedded into the show. Also a personal writer’s peeve, they don’t need to lay out so much exposition in the first three episodes. They could have actually waited until later to reveal that Frasier was on television. There could have been a comical way to reveal that he had made the leap from radio psychiatrist to “dancing bear”, as Niles would have said.

These people sicken me. Honestly, sickening. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/jared-golden-drops-opposition-assault-weapons-ban-lewiston-shootings-rcna122423

How can this country hope to broker peace in other lands when the problems of indiscriminately meted out violence and death have become so intractable here? The politics are so slow and slovenly, it cannot even catch up to the pace of these gun deaths. This is so exhausting. Sometimes events happen in the news and I can’t even summon the energy to post here anymore.

Those “Shame On You” segments with the animated wagging finger were iconic! Man, R.I.P. to Mr. Diaz. In this day and age where one can live to see one’s centenary years, 74 still seems premature.

Remember when figures used to be an important part of any major figure skating competition? Well it has drawn Debi Thomas back into the skating world. Debi Thomas on the black ice.

The only reason to even venture anywhere near that cesspool platform is for the gift articles. Also, this seems important as so many people buy Poland Springs, thinking it is a virtuous brand.

Someone will need to talk Hezbollah down, so this war between Israelis and Hamas doesn’t escalate to a regional war. Normally, I take what the NYT writes with a grain of salt, particularly as it concerns the Caribbean and Latin America (and Africa as well) but I think it’s funny in this particular case because it was so predictable that they’d get it wrong. https://archive.ph/eeoNs Just last week, the New York Times made the prediction that Milei would either win the election outright or, he would lead by a healthy margin even if the election went to a runoff. And now? A runoff, except he’s not the candidate in the lead.

It looks as though Fran Drescher would not be opposed to part of what Clooney has proposed, which is to lift the cap off the dues, for the highest earners so that they can contribute more but it looks like that would require a rule change, which likely means it would need to be voted on first. She did say explicitly that, at the moment, this wouldn’t help achieve the union’s current goals.

According to President of SAG-AFTRA Fran Drescher, the proposal being offered by Clooney et al., wouldn’t be legal. Man, am I glad that nobody tried to to this during the WGA strike, as I fear it would weaken writers’ prospects in the long term!

I was going to mention this in my previous post but I didn’t want to risk spoiling anything for you. Unfortunately, there are several key episodes that are missing and they involve how Lisa finds out about what Barbara has done to Tom and Margo. We only know that Lisa finds out by the frosty way she starts to treat Barbara and she talks about it in whispered tones in a scene where she is discussing it with Tom and Margo in the boutique that she and Barbara share. At that time, Lisa even considered severing her partnership in the boutique with Barbara. We also learn in a conversation that Barbara eventually confessed to Bob and Kim what she had done but the episode where she does it is missing. Such a shame, because one of the things that I used to enjoy about watching soaps, particularly ATWT as a kid, is watching a narrative unspool itself, bit by bit. And re-watching these episodes over the past few years, I have an even greater appreciation for it, from a writing perspective. Watching that story unfold, we realize that Barbara’s worst fear (don’t know why she never thought about it when she decided to set Tom up) was always that Lisa, Kim and Bob would find out what she’d done. So, the discovery was twofold: that Tomis finally clued in about Barbara’s misdeeds and quickly informs Margo and they confront a seemingly unrepentant Babs, then the other half is Lisa, Kim and Bob finding out. It’s a pity that we don’t get to see Lisa, Kim and Bob’s reactions because I know there must’ve been some great speeches and lectures in there for Barbara and frankly, I don’t remember how those scenes played out the first time they aired on television.

Was Jerry a partner? I thought he did merchandising for her fashion brand Simply Barbara. From what I remember, Barbara got some notion that Jerry was charging her too much for his services and Lucinda suggested that she use her lawyer Ambrose Bingham to get her out of her contract, which Jerry refused to let her out of and I believed he threatened to sue Barbara and wanted Tom to represent him but Tom refused because he still considered Barbara to be like family (even after all she put him through). But, yes, Barbara's lie finally being revealed was a delicious comeuppance for her. I really liked the chemistry between the actor who played Jerry and Eileen Fulton (Lisa) and had held out hope for the longest time that he might come back one day, single and he and Lisa would become romantically involved.

One really can’t believe much of what this guy says but if he’s even considering this, how can he even hope to sustain this platform? https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-considering-taking-twitter-x-out-of-europe-dsa-2023-10?r=US&IR=T

Immediately recognized Joanna Merlin from her character Mrs. Berg from the Fame movie, which I could only see once it aired on HBO years after it originally played in movie theaters (it was way too mature for me to see in its original theatrical run). I also recognize her from her work as a teacher, where she did actually teach acting in NYC schools of the arts. May she RIP. It is odd that the Fame television series decided to make Mrs. Berg a little white haired old lady who worked in the administrative office, when in the original movie, the character was a dance teacher.

Wasn’t Martha cast before Marland took over HW duties though?

On the cover of next month’s Vanity Fair, there is a vintage photo of Barbra Streisand with the lead article line that says “Hello, Barbra!” You can probably guess what next came to mind when I saw that.

Paramount+ posted the series premiere episode on their YouTube channel, so I did get the chance to see the series premiere. Some of the jokes fell flat for me but when the episode really leaned into the dramatic dialogue (e.g. Freddie and Frasier talking about his absence from his grandfather Martin’s funeral) it demonstrated how much heart and potential this series truly has. Also, the series is well cast, all of the characters seem interesting, and I am intrigued enough to want to see more. And there were some genuine moments of humor but those moments were scanty. Hopefully it is a result of that awkward pilot dynamic where there is often a laying out of exposition and the show will hit its stride soon.

You may not have known her name but if you opened the pages, or even peeked at a cover of Essence magazine or paid attention to style and fashion in the 1990s, you likely would recognize her face. R.I.P. Gail O’Neil. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2023/10/gail-oneill-supermodel-obituary

Is Garbiñe Muguruza a Zumba instructor now? I can respect her honesty in admitting that she has no desire to play tennis at this time.