Vee

Per some of what we discussed in the PT:

I didn't love the 60 Minutes interview either. Harris is admittedly not perfect as an interview subject unless it's more casual (which is to somewhat be expected after being kept often in reserve for four years, and only having two months to pull this whole thing off up to now which has been remarkable) and I find she too often leans on canned answers in those more buttoned-up settings, whereas I do think she thrives and excels in debates or live on the stump, or with more unconventional or less Beltway-centric outlets. I do think with more time she'd do much better in this kind of format, but we haven't had any and regardless it hasn't hurt her favorables which keep going up. But I also felt Bill Whitaker's performance on 60 Minutes was lousy. It was the classic old-school TV interview of brief soundbites, too much editing down, too much voice-over by the anchor and not enough substantive discussion, and most of his questions were merely gotcha framing shots out of the old GOP playbook (Trump says this/what do you say, how are you going to pay for it, etc). So in that sense I think it only proved Harris' team right for going to Stern, to Call Her Daddy, to The View, to NABJ etc. And I think those will all work well.

I probably said some of that, sure, though it's more insightful than me, but I think I said that I feel part of it also has to do with her 'drama club kid' teenage complex, seeing the world as self-obsessed theater, and of course losing her father. It's a toxic mix but either way I wanted Diana gone quickly lol. I do need to get back to the show - I stopped a third of the way through S7 at ep 10 (Joshua's death) so I could try to catch up on Dallas' Dream Season which I intend to watch in tandem, and I've been preoccupied IRL and with movies, etc. I will be back on it soon.

Since part of that seems unavoidably paywalled, you can find more here. Since NBC is now facing internal pressure from their own stars over this as well as Errol Morris, hopefully if Trump fails to acquiesce to a debate by the Thursday deadline they'll be forced to run it.

Thompson, who seems to have a visceral distaste for Harris (and Biden), nonetheless posts this poll which seems to bear out what we've been seeing for some time:

Nah, I think he's great.

And yes, this and the COVID test stuff is the key headline all major Beltway media are running with:

A typically dishy piece, but the biggest takeaway is Trump secretly sending Putin COVID tests before the American people. I don't always agree with Beutler on many things, but I generally agree with this. Like him, my growing concern is after the election. The race is pretty stable, and as of today's polls Harris remains considerably up both nationally and in most key states including MI: Sorry for the funky order.

This is the way this derailing should always be handled.

February sweeps is not that far away, lol. I wouldn't see any point in a triangle with Sam, Dante and Lulu without a strong fourth side for Sam, and I already considered her a spent character (unlike Dante or Lulu). Sam and Dante was always a C-pairing to park the characters somewhere.

He's still behind and has been for maybe a month. Which is why they're trying to amp up the horserace. I'm not seeing many major media calling his Butler rally anything but repugnant and/or strange. Unless we're pointing to Luntz, Cenk Uygur or the dead end left on Twitter, which really don't hold much sway over actual new voters (or Democrats). I'm reasonably confident we'll win though it is important to remain very vigilant. It's not the winning that concerns me most atm. It is the fallout from what happens after. Trump has primed his cult far worse than 2020 this time.

A series of good Harris polls today, but the Beltway media remains very pissed she's doing little people media (and y'know, also 60 Minutes, Univision, The View, etc):

There isn't any depth in Frank's preferred GH, based on ideal scene length. I can't fault the actors for that. I thought both Jonathan and the twunk did a good job.

They used to have Tim Stickney (R.J. Gannon) and to a certain extent Erika Slezak doing some quiet day to day rewriting on OLTL under the table, IIRC. Both discussed it openly in the oral history. The conflict of interest was cited to them so they simply didn't take pay for it (unfairly, IMO). Something similar happened decades before with Ellen Holly, who at least once or twice pitched long story (like the Jack Scott saga) that they used but gave her no pay for for the same reasons.

That's because it generally wasn't, at the time at those other shows. Nobody at GH was issuing a press release saying Guza was overwriting Culliton material without his name on it, for example, but it was clear onscreen and later cast and crew did confirm it. It simply quietly happened, and it got out after the fact in most cases. But in early 2003 at OLTL the soap journalists (not the show) were being very open about it on background in SOD or SOW. It's simply been a quiet, common practice for a number of incoming writing teams for many decades.

I 'reconcile it' because writers in soaps have been doing this since at least Doug Marland at GH in the '70s in his opening weeks, and it's a known practice at the networks. Ask the key players in the Guza writing team about when he started again in '97. It's not a theory, it's simply the reality of what has happened over and over. The magazines were openly reporting on Malone and Griffith ghostwriting and tweaking in January '03 and possibly late December '02 at the time, BTW. I was there. The new teams sometimes come in and massage or redo what was already scripted but not yet taped, without official credit.

The legendary Sally Field shares her abortion story. Warning: This gets considerably detailed about her horrific experience and is not for the faint of heart.

Meanwhile, some of the Beltway is clearly losing patience:

If we're talking doctors I'm not exactly weeping for the loss of Finn or that we had less of Terry, who delivers each line like she's only just discovered talking pictures. I think the show was deeply at odds with itself during the brief PM era, so it's impossible to know what was in mind. Now that Frank has his pet writers back we're settling into the same staid equilibrium.

It was so ignoble. I couldn't believe it.

I remember when they killed off John near the end of the Sheffer era. I agree, it was real. I was stunned then and stunned when they very unceremoniously wrote him and Marlena out under Higley not long after. The shockwaves around SON at the time were legit too, IIRC. I liked the idea of the relevant white collar crime story around their and Carrie/Austin's return in 2011, but I am often an apologist for the early part of that era. As with most things Days they didn't know how to play it out. I also always liked Molly Burnett at least. She took too much grief from Daytime Confidential at its peak, but all I saw was a talented actress on a bad show.