Vee

I don't think Moffat cares much for women who idolize the Doctor. Amy grew out of it, and River never truly has. He understands, I think, that the Doctor stands apart in a way - though I did love the Doctor and Rose's romance when it worked in the first series, and I love the Doctor and River. And Jenna-Louise Coleman's companion, whoever she truly turns out to be, has been heavily promoted as someone who can out-think and out-talk the Doctor. And while I loved Donna, I will say that the inability of RTD to truly conceive of a character who didn't either idolize or love the Doctor was what screwed up Martha. I adored Freema Agyeman and Martha, and I thought she had the kind of game staying power and spunk that made Elisabeth Sladen stick in people's minds. If they hadn't forced a crush angle and written her out for the more high-profile Catherine Tate - who could only ever do a year - I think Martha could've done a long, long run as a fully functional companion like the old days. As it is, Amy and Rory ended up being the ones to do that instead.

I liked Amy from the start. People got on her because she was 'too sexy' or too bitchy or whatever, but I think the character is one of the most fully realized companions ever. She has a profound arc. She goes from confused, insecure, defensive young woman to wife to working woman to mother. She has a life and times outside the Doctor, while with the Doctor. No other companion has truly had that. I loved Rose in her day, but it grated on me how willing she was to throw everything away for him. Part of it was that she was very young, but it didn't help that the creative team seemed to valorize that POV at the time. And it made Series 2 unbearable for me. Rory, too, was a huge step. A similar character, Mickey Smith, was basically mocked and dismissed early on under Nine and Ten as the 'tin dog' and left there, though they did eventually rehab the character - but he never got Rose, as I'd once predicted would be his arc. When I first watched Series 1 I thought Rose would eventually grow out of her life with the Doctor and come to find a mature relationship with Mickey. Instead, he left her and she got a clone. That was a wretched ending for an incredibly influential and important companion and co-star who, despite my issues with Rose's later character development, had a profound and immensely positive effect on making the revival work. Without Billie Piper it would not have gone off so well. But with Arthur Darvill and Rory, they promoted and championed him at every turn. Every time you thought Amy was preaching the gospel of the Doctor, it turned out she was preaching the gospel of Rory. They made him a full, amazing character and hero in his own right. I loved so much of the RTD era, but one key failing was that he never would have thought to do that. I will miss them both terribly, and I think they were incredibly influential and groundbreaking companions both as the first team since the '80s, and as a married couple - and two people that lived their own fully fleshed-out lives alongside the Doctor, as opposed to Rose or Donna, who had their fine backstories and supporting cast but lived for their times with the Doctor.

I don't believe that the public is going to see this that way at all. It's contemptuous of most Americans and the American way in general.

Carl, I'm sorry but you're wrong. There will always, always be Beltway village media who try to force the false equivalency, yes, that much is true. But just because they try doesn't mean it always works and is all-consuming. It failed in 08 and it's failing even harder now. The public and press reaction to this has been overwhelming shock and disgust. It's going nuclear. Going by the desperate spinning of Andrea Mitchell, Chuck Todd or most of the droogs at Politico will always make you unhappy. But they are not the majority. And even they know this is awful and another death blow. I'm sure Todd will say so this morning, and Mitchell all but admitted it last night. I understand the way those kind of press corps tools work; I grew up in a family that worked inside the Beltway village. But you can't let it all get to you. Those few shills are trying to preserve a mentality and a cocktail circuit that needs that mentality, and above all preserve the illusion of the 'close' horse race election to keep ratings and ad revenue up. But they know how bad this tape is, and they know this election is done. It's one thing to be practical and pragmatic. But in this case, letting a few negative voices dominate the spectrum from your vantage point is only feeding a dying beast. They know they're spinning ashes.

Mitt Romney is actually running out of ways to self destruct. I thought the McCain campaign was the apex of failure. I was wrong.

Season 5 was interesting in hindsight because it was when they declared they were going to retool the show to make it 'more grounded' again, less insane like the heights (or depths) of Season 4. They introduced Taylor and Kyle, Sam, etc. and unfortunately phased out Kimberly, which I still think was a dire mistake. And the problems didn't end there. They forced the interminable Jake/Alison pairing no one liked and kept it going all year before finally ending it with both actors being simultaneously dismissed. They backburnered Sydney. Yet I did like some of the experimentation at the time. The Amanda/Peter/Taylor/Kyle story worked. Kyle and Syd worked. Even Craig worked at first, kind of. By the end of the season they had gone full-on back to crazy town, with Taylor dressing up like Peter's dead wife and the rage epilepsy madness. That was the end of Taylor being seen as any kind of remotely grounded character - although the embarrassing phone sex interludes with Peter earlier on ("I lust you") didn't help, either. I enjoyed Lisa Rinna as a more comic character in Season 6, and missed her when she left, but Taylor lost something when the storylines went nuts. It was a terrible mistake to get rid of Marcia and Laura Leighton, and it was foolish not to write Billy out with Alison. Season 6 is easily the worst in the series. It's just awful. I think Season 7 actually restored a lot of the show's glory - particularly when it turned Lexi into a queen bitch - and I think it was much better than 90210 at the time when it went off. I even liked the revival series. It had its dog plots and couples, as did the original show, but I thought a great deal of it worked, and I thought Katie Cassidy was a star. I was amazed it wasn't renewed, as it was way better than the 90210 revival, with key roles for Amanda and Michael. The only mistake was killing Syd a second time.

I like how this is still a thread, seeing as Romney personally ended his campaign yesterday morning.

Carla and Viki! Wow.

It's easy to poke at a few corners of the Internet and think something is the accepted gospel. There's always going to be vocal fans online who dislike this character or that one. But if Blair wasn't popular with the audience they wouldn't have kept her on for 20 years and kept her in the spotlight, much less put her on GH. She's become a part of the firmament.

I don't remember the exact quote, but it shouldn't be hard to google. I do remember she called it "the daytime equivalent of Ishtar" and not her finest hour.

Hahahahaha, I remember that classic line from the above episode! "You know, I would say a word to the wise except you are so stupid." I quoted it on TWOP at the time. So long ago yet it seems like yesterday. As much as I did truly enjoy Tuc/David under Carlivati, this reminds me of how they used him better back then despite the show being a completely bonkers mess. There was far more of a balance between comedy and drama for David, he was used as an actively functional character in the Cramer family in ongoing stories, as Dorian's equal and consort, the de facto patriarch of the family alongside her. Granted, only so much could be done after Higley cost them his contract status a few years later. I see the episode also features the ongoing reign of Antonio, Prince of the Streets, Malone's favorite character. Back then he was as despised as John later became. And Lisa Lo Cicero in the thankless role of Sonia during the Santi story, which she later hilariously dissed in a GH interview.

Rachel Miner is co-starring in an buzzed-about indie, Replicas, a thriller in the vein of Funny Games or The Strangers which I had the opportunity of seeing recently. She's pretty impressive in it playing a madwoman. I hope it leads to more substantial credits for her, but more than anything all I could think about was how much I wish she'd gotten to play the adult Michelle Bauer. ...OTOH, looking at her IMDB profile, including an extended run on Supernatural and work on stuff like Sons of Anarchy, it seems she's not doing too bad at all.

For a few weeks after the Mitch/barn debacle it seemed like they were going to stick with it and try to make Blonde Natalie happen. Man, that was weird.

I've heard BTS stories as to why Clint and Carlotta didn't go anywhere. I did like it. I also liked Hank and Carlotta. I wish one of those had gone the distance. I was kind of into the Andrew/Tea flirtation. But he was too good for her on so many levels. I did like Kevin and Cassie, but it was the recast and Jill that ruined it. She was gunning for Laura and she had an agenda re: the Cramers and most of all, Tim Gibbs, who LB allegedly despised in the role. Speaking of the Labine era, I always wanted Eli Traeger to show up as an adult. I thought that would've been an interesting character to play with in the youth set.

Andrew was such a decent, steadfastly courageous man. I was always pleased at how he quietly, kindly officiated at many, many of Todd and Blair's weddings. I wish he could do it again. To his credit I don't believe he ever went near Victor or his various ceremonies again after the rapemance. Too few writers knew how to write for Andrew, and I only fully appreciated the character's depth when I grew up. I loved when they had Joey follow in his footsteps. I'll always believe Joey is just going back to the church. They never explicitly spoke about that last time he was on the show with Tom Degnan in the role, and even when he was at St. James in 2003-2004 he did keep photography as a sideline. I also like to believe Andrew and Cassie have gotten back together - Laura Bonarrigo was allegedly bored with the pairing and was a huge Kevin/Cassie booster, and I can understand why. But that went tits up under JFP and with all she's been through and the show off the air, I'd just like to believe she's happy again with a good man who adored her.

Yes, that was Malone, from summer/fall 2004. It was an ill-fated attempt to do a story not really seen since the 90s, where Blair and Todd work together to shake up the town, etc. That particular version of the plotline was just a very stupid idea. I remember them making "wolf noises" on the phone to scare Asa. Asa explains it to Kevin, who picks it up after they've disconnected. Asa's reply: "It must have hung up." Then he spent a few weeks literally standing in a ditch in the ground until Rex and Shannon McBain walked by. This was how Malone II constructed plot breakdowns, I guess. Trevor St. John then spent the next three or four years citing this storyline as an example of why Todd and Blair were horrible. It vaguely amused me the following year when Asa stepped in at the last moment of the Margaret storyline to pick up where she left off and abduct Blair himself as revenge for this stupidity. IIRC she was held in a mental hospital out of town, and she called him up. I desperately wanted him to say, "I'm sorry, Blair, the wolf must have hung up!", laugh maniacally and put the phone down.

IIRC, judging by the Margaret stuff and the jail scenes, this was Higley. Late, late, late 2004, around the end of the year, when they canned Malone and she came in. Her grand ideas for the future included frontburnering Tari Signor and her horrific voice as Margaret for months on end, and in short order (as per the jail scenes) she had Viki get Dorian fired from Llanview Hospital, where I'd loved her as Chief of Staff in 2003-2004. Right after this Margaret abducts Victor, tortures him for months and then rapes him to create Sam. Then around New Year's Eve, IIRC, we had our first glimpse of Tess, acting cold in the back seat of a limo. I believe we didn't see her again for a proper introduction for several months after that one cameo - it was actually a very brief tease, with no explanation at the time. Legend has it Dena got the job by giving Frons a one-sentence pitch: "Jessica has a split personality." And the hurting was born.

If Robin Christopher had tried to play Cassie Carpenter on OLTL she would never have made it onto the JFP welfare program that lasted her a good 12 years or so. Laura Koffman was beloved and JFP was a complete idiot, but she dodged her own bullet on that point.

I thought Susan Haskell was a decent choice for the Lily recast that shouldn't have happened. Noelle Beck is a good actress but seemed utterly uncomfortable and plasticine in the role, too prim and distanced. It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

God, Tracy Melchior was so [!@#$%^&*] terrible. It was like they'd let any [!@#$%^&*] in the door because Gina said no. Kelly could be a lot of things, but Melchior was inept at exhibiting all of them. Completely unrecognizable as the character.

Wasn't Viki only mayor for like five minutes before getting shot, though? I was under the impression it was used as a plot point. I agree it could've had legs (uh, bad choice of words).

That Tina fantasy is hysterical, and so much of it is due to Andrea's guileless performance.

I remember Grace Atherton.

Sarah did go for Riley - after missing out on Cousin Joey (ugh), she saw what was right in front of her and fell for her bandmate. That's when I knew they were dumping poor Shanelle Workman - the character was backburnered with Riley, then just a recurring dayplayer, and exited during the MBK arc. Then they beefed up Jay Wilkison's role and paired Riley with Jen. I liked JW a lot, especially when they all but had Nora adopt him as her son and Matthew's big brother. I wish he'd hung around; he was great. But then I also thought Shanelle Workman got a raw deal.

I know they wanted Marilyn Chris to appear before the end and asked for her to come back as Wanda, but apparently she's been off doing films.