Vee

I think Erin did just fine in her love scenes, etc. with David Fumero, Jason Shane-Scott and others. She was assertive and in the moment and she and David, who was a fair bit older, had serious sexual chemistry. I think the problem was mostly manufactured, frankly; I didn't see her miss a beat with any of that material. She always came off more mature than Bree Williamson, both before and after she left (and returned for cameos). But would they have ever paired her with Kamar de los Reyes? No, never. I have never had a doubt Erin could play adult stories - with Jessica's children, with Brody Lovett, at the Banner, etc. Lord knows they hardly even attempted to write Bree's Jessica as a mother or a working adult professional. I remember they had some little video Q&As (maybe for SOAPnet) in 2002 with members of the cast, and Erin got pitched some softball question from a fan about what mistakes she thought Jessica had made or something. Erin was clearly barely restraining herself and being polite for the cameras as she talked about Jessica maybe not making the best move staying involved with Seth Anderson. She was gone a couple months later.

I know they were still very close, but I have no idea if they were in a relationship. I doubt it.

Steve Harris was hired for that story. I don't know if Routh didn't want to play it, but he did leave a Bible-thumping rant on his website after being fired promising that God would judge those who had let him go. Erin Torpey chose to leave because she was upset about her story over her last year or two. She took the Natalie/baby switch story personally, felt it had disenfranchised her and invalidated her years playing Viki's daughter. She may or may not have had antipathy towards Melissa Archer, though that's never been substantiated. She despised the pairing with Seth, both Seths. She felt her airtime and story suffered in comparison to MA/Natalie (it did). So she left. She may have done so anyway, but those stories and choices pushed her out the door.

You didn't step on anything, I just wish you'd not always restate everything. I think they were right to recast when Erin chose to leave, though she wouldn't have done so had Gary Tomlin handled her better BTS. The mistake was the stories they gave Jessica in Michael Malone's (and Brian Frons's) rush to make her a more mature young adult female lead. In Malone's mind that meant pairing with her first love's much older brother in an OOC storyline that was on everyday. In Brian Frons's (and Malone's as well, IMO) that meant making her a lily-white damsel in distress who had an IQ of room temperature. IIRC at least part of the reason they fired Routh was because Gary had planned for the gay story with Seth and Rex. I do agree Erin and Melissa were wonderful together, especially near the end as their relationship mellowed. Erin was even and more mature, Melissa was the fire and they complemented each other without it being caricatures or one person being good vs. bad.

I think they would have developed as separate and distinct types of heroines, as they were doing already. They tried to continue that with Bree's Jessica up to a point, but ultimately it came down to her only stories being DID and [!@#$%^&*]. Which left Natalie as the only really stable core heroine (other than Starr, ugh).

Yeah, I already said that twice but it means a lot more coming from you, John.

Her arc was to walk in and say hi. She was on for a few days at best.

Barely. It was enough for them to get away with.

It's very interesting, but I have to wonder how well the wild step of moving everyone in town into the same apartment complex went over with fans and the cast (outside of their press clippings). I mean, was the rest of the town a desolate, bombed-out wasteland after the flood? No one can live anywhere else? Are there roving gangs of cannibals on the streets? What is the infrastructure?

No. They hid her face in the flashback used.

No comment.

Carice van Houten (Game of Thrones) covers Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia4ZfQHHW2I

Gary had been fired by Brian Frons by 2003. The only name I ever heard in contention for Tina that year was Cali Timmons, and it was in the service of another phantom Malone plotline where Tina was supposedly to have become a bigot when her son turned up gay (and involved with Brock Cuchna's Paul Cramer, who came to town looking for him). Not unlike Malone's unfinished story in '96, where Rachel Gannon was to have fallen for Bo's son Drew and they would be conspired against by Becky Lee Abbott, who would have inexplicably turned racist. All in all I'm glad we did without Tina at the time. I don't think Sarah Buxton's name was ever seriously in the mix that year but it might have been the year before, under Gary with a different HW.

Sarah Buxton would have been godawful as Tina, and I liked Sunset Beach. She was way too young and just not very versatile.

GOT is having trouble filming a key scene in Croatia.

Well, they did do that story on the new show. And it started out very good IMO, but they kind of dropped it - Clint bailed Viki out on the money she had lost in a hedge fund while trying to save the paper, and then the problem seemed to dissipate, with the exception of Viki dumping him for violating her trust. Of course, that was only a few episodes before the end. They might well have just been resting the storyline and then brought it back in again had they returned - Jeffrey was still the very busy star reporter at the Banner, Destiny worked nights there as well, and Dorian had sent the LPD after Viki on suspicion of insider trading. But it didn't go as deep as it could have at the time. They should've had Viki actually lose the money, go bankrupt, have to put Llanfair up on the docket as she had planned, and then get busted for Dorian's frame-up.

Most of the fan reaction I've seen online (at least, in the UK which is honestly most of where I bother taking any online reaction seriously) said this was an incredible showcase for Clara - I don't know about that, because I thought they began developing her better in Day of the Doctor and continued from there, I don't see much of a difference or more intense focus so much as just more of a steady thing from the last few stories. I don't think they tried to indicate that she was ever in love with the Doctor or he with her, but it was a different, more flirtatious dynamic which the new Doctor is no longer interested in. (I could see some of it in Series 7, but I honestly never took it seriously - I think they talked about it more in the press than it was ever onscreen, frankly. And I think Eleven was more into just having someone to pal around with without all the baggage from Amy and Rory, though he loved them; Clara was intriguing and yet far less complicated.) I think Capaldi and Coleman are very, very, very good together, better than what she had with Smith. The restaurant scene was priceless. And he is already a wonderful force to be reckoned with. The whole episode was a massive stylistic departure, in terms of Ben Wheatley's direction and the tone and pace as well - I thought it was a risk, but I thought it paid off. Was it the greatest premiere? No, but I thought it was quite good. I don't think most of the recent series have been plotless, but I do think this story definitely was, relatively, because it was more about the characters and that interplay, the Doctor and Clara and how they will relate to each other now, how the Doctor relates to the robot monsters and so on. The mystery was incidental to their dynamic, which I was fine with in this case. Overall I thought it was an impressive change of pace and I hope it continues. They clearly are not interested in keeping the existing audience feeling safe and cosseted and they took a lot of risks with how to tell that story and execute it onscreen. And I do think some of the commentary on regeneration was, partly, a thumb in the eye to a lot of more recent fans, and I think some of them deserve it. I will miss Jenna if she is out this year. She is just starting to come into her own IMO, especially opposite Capaldi. She is largely a functional, standard companion, but with so much spark and verve - and that's really what the best of them used to be. The proof will come in what they do with her going forward, though, assuming they intend to continue developing her.

I personally chose to believe - since, given the ages of Matthew, Dani and both Matthew and Natalie's sons, the new show seemed to have contracted the timeline a bit to be a year or two after it had left ABC - that Jessica had left town to be with Brody Lovett, and that they had likely married and were raising her kids. (I also chose to believe Ryder was actually Brody's son, not Robert Ford's.) The finale on ABC had implied a reunion for Jess and Brody, and I always loved them together. Had Jessica ever returned, I don't think she should have done it as another typical heroine. I think Natalie had supplanted her role as Viki's heir and rightly so, with a lot more fire. I would've liked to see a plagiarism/falsified journalism story play out with Jessica at the Banner.

JFP cut Clint Ritchie to cut the budget for more of her people, IIRC. The character of Clint had been floating around for a few years at that point, and was able to be taken out. I did think the Clint/Lindsay marriage was a good idea at the time, but in practice, looking back, it was little more than a plot point that had nothing to do with Clint. I always did (and always will) want Erin back in the role of Jessica. But they would have to never mention the DID again, and/or eradicate it from existence. The character was completely destroyed by the end of the ABC run, which is why Natalie had become, over the last ten years, the more viable successor to Viki as show heroine than Jessica.

The tabloid Mirror claims Jenna Coleman is exiting come 2015.

Steven Moffat and the BBC have confirmed they are using a slightly altered version of Billy Hanshaw's fan opening for the new opening sequence for Series 8. I posted it a few posts upthread.

Carl will be thrilled to hear Sophie Turner is continuing to conquer - she is now attached to yet another movie, a Mary Shelley project about the young author's struggle to write Frankenstein; Turner will play Shelley.

Norman Reedus is taking time out to star in Guillermo del Toro and Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima's new game in the famous Silent Hill horror series. That is a very impressive pedigree, and Silent Hill is a wild series. I haven't played one of them in years but even I will be picking this one up.

He's redecorated! She doesn't like it. New trailer for the Series 8 premiere, Deep Breath.

Haha! Oh, Claire, no. They were damn lucky to have Patti D'Arbanville, who had just come off New York Undercover.