DramatistDreamer

I remember the Rumor Has It Promo, although not the specific images. I'm getting wistful at the memory of when CBS has enough soaps on air to do a 4 in 1 cross promo. I wish that episode of when Tonio found Sierra with Craig at Foxwood Lodge were on You Tube but it's not (sob). Random question about the Y&R section: Was that Diane Jenkins (Alex Donnelly) wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and a smile? And where art thou Stephanie E. Williams?

Have you been watching the 1st Season before bedtime?

I love that cover too. Back when those soap digests weren't afraid to put 4 people over 50 on their cover! And the poses look more relaxed, less generic than they do on today's soap mag covers, where everyone now seems to pose in the stereotypical soap shot poses. Has Heather Rattray been doing any acting recently? I was hoping that they would have asked her to reprise the role of Lily after Martha left but perhas she was no longer acting at that time. I wouldn't have minded Lucy Deakins either but I read somewhere that she is a visual artist and left the acting profession some time ago. No offense to Noelle but I just wasn't feeling her in that role. @Amybrickwallace, that's lovely that you got your photographs autographed by Elizabeth Hubbard! Unlike the fairly uptight, tightly-wound and high maintenance Lucinda Walsh, Elizabeth always comes across as laid back and self assured. I was watching this PBS documentary about the movie Giant with Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean and this woman mentions that she was living in the town where parts of the movie were filmed and as an 11 year old girl she encountered Elizabeth Taylor (who was on a break between filming scenes) and she asked Taylor for her autograph and Taylor told her "No". The woman laughed at the recollection but I wonder how she as an 11 year old girl felt about that.

When you think about it, Lily & Holden were an odd supercouple, even to the end. Holden and Lily were not each other first ANYTHING (lol). They were married to other people at times, Dusty was Lily's first lover, in the end, they weren't even together (lol). You could draw the conclusion that had the story continued, they'd reunite but who knows? They may have ended up married to other people again for another couple years. And they always seemed to fall out over the same basic issues. About Patricia Bruder, I wish they had brought her back even for a short arc or occasionally, her spats with Susan might have been enough to cover some of the huge plot holes the show had in the final decade-- or at least, it might have made things more bearable. I loved her look in the 80s when they allowed her natural wave to let loose, instead of trying to restrain it.

For the moment, it sure seems as if Fogs has Rafa's number!

LOL @ Madam's Place! I don't remember the show but somehow I remember that puppet! I should've been scared of her at that young age, but somehow I thought it was funny, mostly that this grown man was voicing her. I just saw the next episode on AsTheWorldStillTurns YT page and I liked the fact that we got to see Jessica and Roy living together, although I can't decide whether it was annoying or realistic that Roy was a chauvinist. I did enjoy Jessica putting him in his place and his slightly wounded reaction (hidden by a joke). I wish they had more time together--would've liked to see how Roy's relationship to Jessica would've caused him to evolve but it seems that Jessica and Roy were dropped not long after...maybe the decsion was made soon after the strike was over? In retrospect, I would've like to see Beau stick around too but I wonder whether he was an unpopular character or was it just undoing all the strike material? Wow, in that photo above, Grandpa Hughes looks younger than Chris Hughes! I would have loved to see an episode with Swoosie Kurtz in it! I had no earthly idea she was ever in ATWT!

Yeah, those scenes were contrived. I guess I'm sort of contrasting the episode as a whole to today's daytime soaps and even if this is a strike episode, it's still comparatively better compared to what I see with Y&R.

Great episode, not a dull moment. Hey, it's Victoria Rowell playing Nella! It's kind of ridiculous that Kirk won a brand new car, while Casey got that scuzzy little rabbit's foot! Gosh, even Nella got a prize package of designer clothes from Fashions! Jennifer Ashe was so good in this episode, you really see the progression of the Meg character from brazen and wide eyed teen to adult woman. You see hope wrestle with cynicism but she still has that longing-- that longing was once for the finer things but now that she has them in an requited relationship, her longing is now for love. Her scenes with William Fichtner are really good but I am still unnerved by Rod/Josh's history and therefore can't be accepting of that relationship. That kiss between Kirk and Iva (lol). I loved them, it's a shame they didn't get a genuine chance to be a long lasting couple. They were interesting together. Speaking of interesting, as a kid, I never thought much of Pam and Beau but now, I kind of appreciate the interesting contrast they provided to other couples on the show. In a way, they were one of the more modern couples at the time. And unlike Lily and Holden (poor little rich girl and the farmer boy), Pam and Beau were more equals. Tonio was a real pig (lol) but I wish they hadn't completely turned him into a wannabe arch villain years later. I would've preferred him just being a philandering womanizer who takes short cuts in business to achieve what he wants. It seems like the show was looking for a Stenbeck wannabe later on when they had Tonio shoot Bob and run down to Montega. Still, compared to today's ridiculous storylines, Tonio could've been revived and made viable in a less ridiculous manner than many characters on today's soaps.

I'm not going to judge single minded people but I'm just saying don't get married then and don't have kids if you want to focus solely on tennis. If you do end up having a child, liked Stan did, just accept the fact that you have to be a parent regardless of your hopes and ambitions-- just hope you can work it out as a co-parent with the other person--still no need to get married. Seems like Stan wanted to be like Roger but they are two different people and Roger's relationship seems a lot more solid than Stan's ever was and clearly Roger is not at a loss to commit, seems like Stan wanted the respectability of a marriage and family life but deep down wasn't truly about it. Honestly, I don't think that his wife would've said anything until Stan put out that cheesy statement trying to cast himself in the best light as trying his best, which must've ticked off his wife and she busted him. He should've tried to release the joint statement or not say anything at all.

Oh my goodness, Stefano Capriati passed away!! Oh man, poor Jennifer and her brother and family! That is sad. I wonder whether there was any connection between Stefano's health and Jennifer's twitter rants? @soapsuds-- Stan's wife Ilham dragged his azz! It's really none of anyone's biz but sh*t, it's juicy! She said that people shouldn't blame her or the marriage for Stan's recent spate of downgraded results since they've been separated for months now and Stan won Chennai even though they were separated. She also stated that players with better results (*coughs* Federer and Djokovic) are married and have committed family lives. She also basically intimated that Stan wanted to mess around like a single man, using words like "betrayal".r JMO but I think that marriage was doomed from the very start. The fact that they separated then reunited around the time she was pregnant, says that he did not want to be married. Some people are not meant to be married. I think Stan might just be one of those people.

I'm telling you, anyone who misses the good ole' fashion DRAMA that Daytime Soaps used to be about, should really check out tennis these last several months. Starting with the Swiss! That stuff with the Davis Cup last year, now Stan and his estranged wife releasing dueling statements about their separation and impending divorce and Stan's wife really got her burn on with that scorching statement she released in retaliation for Stan's initial statement. Throw in Martina Hingis trying to woo Roger or Stan for mixed doubles in Rio (remember her storied love life?! I didn't even get to the whole Romania's Fed Cup team hates Genie Bouchard thing...

Nope. I've been looking for one consistently. Not on youtube from what I can see (TV One's You Tube page is just sad). Google turns up nothing. The messy TV One website no longer seems to stream any Unsung episodes. What do they really do with Season 1 and Season 2 episodes of Unsung? Even HBO and Showtime has freeviews and streaming sites. And Bounce is moving up faster in a shorter period of time because they are accessible by antenna. TV One needs to do better.

This makes me feel sad that she tried and probably didn't get much assistance. She could've used the Internet and Kickstarter back then. Is Ms. Phillips still alive?

Also in the category of deleted tweets, apparently Brad Gilbert had to hastily delete one of his about the U.S. Men's Claycourt Championships. Supposedly, he got the twitter handle for the USMCC wrong and accidentally tagged a gay men's porn site in his tweet! Maybe this mishap will cause him to take a look at his misspellings of words too and maybe proofread a little before he tweets.

I think McEnroe felt free to chastize Andy because he was under the illusion that people believe that he left, rather than the reality that they didn't want him to continue in the position and that he was fired. I think the USTA mistakenly allowed him to spin the story that he didn't want to move full time to Florida so they parted ways. Good for Andy for chucking his failure in his face. Patrick should have kept his yapper shut. Could you imagine how his brother John would've reacted had some tennis commentator said to him what Patrick said to Andy after a loss?

Has anyone seen this doozy of an exchange between Andy Murray and Patrick McEnroe? I heard it's since been deleted but if Marat Safin had a chance to read Murray's response to Patrick, surely he would give Andy a slow clap on that comeback https://twitter.com/jwilsontennis/status/585343278423244800

Billy Magnussen (final Casey Hughes, ATWT) is involved in The Sonnet Project, a very cool project that uses actors in various NYC locations to film all of Shakespeare's sonnets, mainly for for educational use for NYC students in understanding iambic pentameter and the meaning of sonnets. Billy Magnussen is involved in Sonnet 108 which will appear on their website on April 22: http://sonnetprojectnyc.com/ There's nothing better than seeing Shakespeare live but this is a very unique project and I can see it having an impact.

Gay or straight, Gregg Marx had incredible chemistry with Hillary Bailey Smith. They could just trade looks and it looked so intense. Scott Holmes was nice and he didn't have bad chemistry with HBS better with Dolan but by the time Marx left the role, I realized that there would be no more passionate chemistry with Tom and Margo-- for me, there just wasn't.

I'm truly surprised that there's been no Kickstarter wanting to do a documentary on Irna Phillips. Loved or reviled, her impact on television is indisputable. People talk about Shonda Rhimes...Irna Phillips was the Shonda of her day!

Very interesting. I read that same thing as well. That's a bit of a backstage mystery, what really happened.

I'm just convinced that IW is just bad for Serena's health. She looked so stressed the entire time, even when she'd won the first set of a match, her face looked twisted in agony at times. Now I see on twitter that she has withdrawn with a knee injury and someone is asking why no announcement has been made and if no lessons were learned from 2001. Supposedly, Serena will come out and speak to the crowd. Uh-oh.

I guess this will leave Odesnik with more than enough time for mustache twirling because it seems as if he was as disliked as any villain onscreen and in real life. From tennis players to former ball kids, the general consensus seems to be that Odesnik had no respect for himself nor others and a complete ass-hole.

I'm surprised that Sugarmama with all her vaunted fashion sense didn't tell her box to refrain from dressing like the 3 Stooges. Just a bizarre look! Pennetta was and has always been a tough player, one you don't want to play, especially if you're not playing tip top tennis. I was watching an online stream and clicking back and forth between the Dimitrov/Robredo match and Shazza/Pennetta and I could swear I saw a moment when Grigor must have looked at the big scoreboard and saw how far Maria was down in the final set seconds after what sounded like an announcement from an adjacent court and I saw a grimace appear on Grigor's face--I'm guessing the announcement was the score from the Pennetta/Sharapova match.

that and Niculescu's crazy ass style of play! I can't remember the last time I saw someone hit the ball with that much spin! I'm not just talking about topspin, I'm talking sidespin, backspin, underspin...Jennifer Capriati would've called Niculescu a ' junkballer'. I don't think Niculescu hit one single flat shot all match long and it drove Serena bonkers because of the lack of pace on Monica's strokes. I almost had to laugh at one time, Niculescu hit what can only be described as a forehand slice dropshot and it pretty much died right after climbing over the net as Serena lunged after it, knowing it was a lost point. When someone feeds you balls with little to no pace, you practically have to grab the ball if you want to hit it back, if you like to play with pace and are use to clean, flat strokes, it drives you nuts to try to create your own pace that way. I'm not posting anymore Serena/I.W. articles but there's a pretty good one on Yahoo!/Eurosport by someone named Tumaini Carayol, who talks about how Serena's return doesn't change anything in as far as the racist abuse exhibited and lack of apology by the tournament in how they failed to handle the situation. Tennis is often know for throwing players under the bus in situations when they fail to do the right thing. I remember watching a documentary about Monica Seles and how when she was recuperating after the stabbing, her representatives had asked the ITF/WTA to hold her ranking in place while she recovered. Instead of doing the right thing, the WTA/ITF claimed they had to put it to a vote and shortly thereafter informed Seles' agent/rep that the then Players' Council voted it down, so Seles' ranking plummeted after losing massive amounts or ranking points for tournaments missed. Years later, the ITF/ATP/WTA would all adopt a Protected Rankings System that would essentially do what Monica had pleaded with them to do for her, only it was implemented years later-- too late to help Seles. WTA/ITF put it all on the players but since Seles was nearly mortally wounded at a WTA sanctioned tournament through no fault of her own, why put this on the players? Many of whom were Seles' competitors at the time? As much as I am a fan of tennis, there are many such times when the organizations governing the sport have shown themselves to be self serving and greedy and taking actions that catered to the tournaments at the expense of the players.

I read on Twitter from someone sitting in the stands that when the announcer asked if people were excited about the return of Serena Williams, there were mostly cheers and applause yet some boos. If those fools boo, I'm cutting IW loose for good on my viewing guide. I won't waste my time watching again. I had stopped watching for years after the Williamses boycott and slowly began to watch a few matches here and there over the past two years. With the time difference, I'm barely hanging in as it is... Update: Serena got a nice ovation, she shed a few tears, her sister Isha had tears...I may have welled up a bit myself.