Vee

Yes it was. It was done with huge fanfare for them and I was impressed. I have pored over the blogs, fansites, interviews etc. for more details re: the original intent for Empire Valley but I think the reality is no one quite remembers. The surveillance state, paranoia and spying elements were there from the beginning in Season 6, and I do think are very relevant today. I think just how sci-fi it got the following season may not have been what was intended.

I keep tripping out whenever I see Thomas, the little kid who was so good in Weapons (and has now accordingly left the show). I will tune in to see Dan Gauthier. I was very impressed with a lot of the special actor eps, anniversary stuff, Drake's memorial etc. earlier in the year. General stories aside I felt they handled a ton of small and large milestones (Stephen Nichols' anniversary, Bo and Hope, Drake, the 60th, Sami's reaction to John, etc.) very well all year long and did not skimp on flashbacks or time with the veterans. The show still has a ton of raw potential.

Maybe in principle, but my problem is that Tony's way of dealing it (both before and after Guza left, and during the intervention story no less) was to loudly and repeatedly proclaim in interviews that Luke was not an alcoholic and had full control of his drinking, even after the character had been drinking to abusive excess for years and had just drunkenly mowed down his own grandson. That's just ridiculous. Luke was unavoidably an alcoholic by that point onscreen, and FV/RC had planned to directly address it per his illness. Tony's response was to ad-lib Luke continuing to drink, betting that Valentini would bend the knee and not stop him. He was right and the storyline was changed (along with any LNL plans) to say oh no, Luke isn't dealing with the consequences of his alcoholism, he's just got radiation poisoning from the bad guys. I could get behind the family reveal, but not as part and parcel of Fluke which was unbelievably bad. I also thought Tony's performance as Evil Tim Spencer, the ghost jabbering away at Luke, was honestly hilarious. The Soup perfectly captured him in their impression of him, right down to the hysterical dialogue. "You're oooollddd Luke! Come join Daddy in hell!" I will say that Joey Luthman was excellent as young Luke, and that I thought Tony was absolutely right about the terrible Frank Smith revisit. That whole 'final adventure' was cheap and bad. I do wish Luthman had gotten a contract role as Cameron or something, the same way Chloe Lanier got Nelle (which was squandered).

It's that time again. @DRW50

It's looked awful for days if not weeks. She looked better when she'd just gotten out of the coma.

We're through the looking glass here, people!

Donnell is back!

Britt and Spencer did not have that deep a relationship. And Claudette sucked.

A very solid show.

I think Bill's waffling makes sense for who he is as a man. He doesn't know what he wants, or more accurately he knows what he wants back but can't process and admit it. I do agree Ted and Shanice have major chemistry but I still really like Ted and June. I think Leslie needs a much better class of bad dude than dusty-ass Marcel but I'll allow it for now.

Can't they just meet in an alley or something? A car?

I have been rewatching November sweeps '94 for the first time since I was a kid seeing it live. There's some beautiful stuff throughout but particularly when a still-hurting Tony first walks on the wild side a bit visiting Frisco with Felicia in Cairo, and bonds with Frisco's fellow WSB agent in a brief death-defying situation with some goons and his trusty scalpel. He then comes back to town and has a long, very thoughtful scene at the Outback with Mac where they talk about Frisco's upbringing and difficult relationship with their father, and how it has modeled his extreme opposite reaction to raising his daughters (or opting out of raising them) as well as about Tony's own experience with the adventure. It was fascinating, beautiful stuff but it was also what I remember that regime did every day, as you say. There were always little vignettes and grace notes like that.

So typically stupid.

No clue, but Apa is a religious type (and Jimmy Stewart was a devout Christian IIRC).

MVJ was only briefly a co-HW in late '00 or early '01 before Jill arrived and installed McTavish, but I do take your point.

I still blame that more on the pace, production schedule and shallow short scenes. Laura will never be my preferred Carly but I have defended her as selling it from Day 1. In the Guza years she still had some nuanced beats or emotions to play from time to time, and during Jason's initial return last year (again, when PM was on the scene) they gave her some quieter, more emotional stuff with him re: Bobbie, etc. that I thought was very unshorn and strong. I also thought she did well with the Bobbie memorial eps and Kristina Wagner and Jane shortly before that, particularly when she talked about how Ruby had essentially trafficked Bobbie. Tracy noted that what Ruby did was seen as something else in those days, and Carly quietly and kindly took that but said that it was still what it was. She understood the nuance of the backstory and didn't overplay it as outrage or anger. I think when Laura has to simply service plot beats she goes hard at them because that's what she's expected to do. I don't really put that on her, and I think Carly's role is also often different from some other characters. She has to push more and do it harder and louder a lot of the time. They give cartoonish stuff to Tracy too, but generally give Carly less facets on the page these days.

That's how much this team (I suspect it's mostly CVE at this point but who knows) loves their own forced mythology re: these two asshóles.

Bryan Craig and Flava Flav. Yes.

I'm glad they have so much fun on that set. I crashed out at Eva and Mona (I think it was them).

It was diverting at best and got worse over time with heavier story. Now Brad is just scum agan.

It's because Parry Shen [sic] had chemistry with Ryan Carnes and they got a following. They let that ride even though Carlivati's initial endgame was clearly supposed to be Lucas and Felix, his brief favorite. Brad and Lucas was supposed to be the obstacle.

I agree. Broderick is talented and I'd love to see her at GH but I don't believe she has the stunt queen instinct Ron does. And while there was a lot about 2012 that was dreadful to watch live there was also a lot of eye-catching, exciting material that kept people glued to the show, both before and after the water crisis in the fall (the first reveal of the alive Robin and "Duke," the Faison reveal, the baby swap and the initial OLTL arrivals which did bring over viewers, the return of A.J., etc). A case can be made that the very OTT Connie mess also drew viewers even though I hated every moment of it. I don't think it can be disputed that for better or worse Frank and Ron saved GH that year. And I don't know that that happens with Broderick.

They wanted to do that. Tony explicitly rejected it (and apparently loved the whole killing his parents thing). There were many problems with the writing in 2012-2015, but their first order of business was reuniting LNL and it was one of the first plans Tony killed (along with addressing Luke's alcoholism, which he subverted as they begin dealing with it by ad-libbing taking drinks at the Q mansion onscreen instead).

Yes, the Drew and Willow drama exists because of Mulcahey. The current team just ran with it. But they've done a half-decent job with that as opposed to wishing it all away and rolling the clock back, even if Drew is now largely just a cartoon. They've also gotten lucky. Not just with what Mulcahey left them but with an excellent Michael recast (now being squandered on a cheap dayplayer). I don't think that Frank would ever deliberately sabotage the show, at least not from his POV or in his mind. But I do think the show heavily suffered from whatever went down BTS early last year with all parties, and I do think it seems like FV was leaning into that chaos and battling til he could get back the whip hand. Counting on the fact that he could outlast the turmoil, and he did.

Same. It's just malpractice what's being done with Alexa, Genie and the Spencers in general. And a real shame. I do think the writing chaos during the Mulcahey interregnum and corresponding ratings drop only re-cemented FV's power when he brought them up with a few quick moves after PM was ousted/quit. Now they can't tell him anything and it's all his preferences all the time. I won't be shocked if they bring back ME or RH in future. It's too bad, because I do think the network actually made some of the right moves in 2023-24.