Vee

I wouldn't be quite this complimentary of Nuzzi, but the rest checks out. And yes, this was the bulk of her commentary on the night of the SOTU. I was watching several Beltway intelligentsia closely on social media and several of them like her were snarky, very brief in their comments and clearly pissed as Biden won the night.

Oh man. That's almost as good as the Marianne Williamson one.

Terry Brock?? There's a pairing. Thanks again for all you do.

And yet, as I mentioned upthread but was far from the first over the years, Y&R has been ambivalent at best about its Black audience and looking to marginalize it/shift away from it for a couple decades. It wanted to be a bad ABC soap, still often does. I don't believe they will ever rehire Victoria Rowell bc of cast issues and probably Sony, but I think she could turn up on The Gates. But will Y&R ever re-embrace its non-white audience?

This is going to hit Star Trek first at Paramount (and probably already has, given recent moves). But I was expecting that. It's a shame, as that resurgent franchise is responsible for a great deal of what's barely kept Paramount afloat in recent years. I'm just waiting for the service to collapse or merge. Trek will survive one way or another.

@dc11786 I am curious about something: You've talked a lot about the merry-go-round of stories and love interests for various characters in the late '80s/early '90s before Monty. You also mentioned that they apparently tried to pair up Anna with Edge/Evan Jerome. I'd love to know more about that as he seems like a real scuzzy character in these 1991 eps, even by Anna's occasionally dicey standards. What was that about? Also, they do make a lot of mention about Bobbie being back at work here though I know she apparently quit before Monty took over (they keep saying she was just on leave). Did Tony leave her at this point, or how did they get back together from here? And how long have Alan and Monica been divorced at this point? I know they get back together shortly. Thanks for any help; I dig through wonderful past posts of yours often, but there is such a wealth of information out there to sift through. People can say what they will about Monty's disastrous '91 revamp and they're mostly right from what I've seen and heard, but I also really admire the audacity and scope of the big canvas-wide event with the S.S. Tracy sinking and how it shakes up everything and becomes a cross-town community event while also adding new people (of varying quality) right on top of the Valentine's Day follies with Robert and Anna, which I do find both hot and funny. You don't see scale and intent like that often anymore. Tracy and Larry Ashton (and Lila!) getting smashed together is also really funny. I wonder if they were ever committed to Larry with Tracy. I liked him when he returned in the 2010s, hoped Hugo Napier would stick around, and sighed when Carlivati(?) wrote him out by exposing as a collaborator in some skullduggery and having him quite literally flee the scene, racing offscreen on foot out of the Quartermaine mansion to evade capture. I didn't realize Paul Satterfield's Paul apparently came on as another suave bad guy a la Spencer Truman on OLTL; I knew he was in with the cartel for his daughter but I didn't know he poisoned a bunch of people. I wonder when they decided to try to redeem him and make him a hero. He's always come off smarmy to me, but I may be biased re: evil Spencer.

As for Friday, I think Kate Mansi, Burton and LW all did good work. They've really played the beats and impact of the shooting across the canvas. This would admittedly play differently for me if it was Lexi Ainsworth at Dante's bedside (or Sarah Brown with the unexpectedly emotional Steve), but oh well. They are also wisely playing up the tension with Nina and Ava (who I still think is back on baddie time while also possibly catching genuine feelings for Sonny in the process of her long con on him and the local mob families; she's gone down bad for worse). People forget that Ava stole Nina's husband in the '90s which led to Nina ending up in a coma for 20 years and coming out a psychotic bent on vengeance. History could easily repeat here and Nina is still not very tightly wound, as the unhinged mania of Cynthia Watros often reminds us. I don't think it would take much for Nina to snap again if that happened twice and I think it is on the show's mind. They are also clearly setting up Alexis going back to the law via the conversation with Diane. It is wild to remember that Carly's Bed Bath and Beyond makeover house is still Sonny's Greystone Manor, the set Maurice allegedly made the show give him in the mid-2000s when he wanted a home with the stature of Wyndemere. Too many sets/homes in town these days have the all-white BB&B knockoff Nancy Meyers look, including the Quartermaine mansion, but I've been over that before. At least it's not all grey paint and monochrome like in the early-mid 2010s. It has improved, but I'd like to see more color/style variety.

I about died when Laura mentioned the days with both Lucky and Sly Eckert under her roof and mentioned Sly aloud on Thursday's show. I really appreciated the time taken to try and differentiate the two older boys staying at the Quartermaine atm - they've gone out of their way in the last week or two to present Danny as trying to mimic his noble stoic impression of his absentee father, while the very rarely seen Rocco seems more outwardly sensitive and reminds me of Dante himself. I liked the scenes with Laura and Carly with each of them; these are relationships we so rarely see on this show over the last decade-plus with children not named Spencer or Violet (or played by former OLTL child stars, like poor non-actor Patrick Gibbons as Wyatt the Boy Scout). In the Guza II years many of the children were more fleshed out, but they were also often reduced to cute tics or vignettes designed to prop up the mob, like precocious Molly and Morgan roaming around town cheering on Jason and Sam. They had a lot of character, but it got almost as old as Nicolas Bechtel's Spencer for me. (The less said about Dylan Cash the better.) Anyway, this is all connective tissue the show has really improved on with a lot of characters over the last week. And the fact that they've charmed me with the Spixie scenes, both together solo or with Wagger, etc. for the first time since 2009 or so (and made me watch Kirsten Storms actually wake up for work again) is impressive. It does sound like Lulu is on the way back. And nice to see in the next time preview that they're playing Jake too (opposite Finn and Liz) on Monday.

This is where we use the pagan rites to summon @EricMontreal22, who I believe spent ages trying to track down the pilot for Michael Malone's late night FOX soap set in New Orleans. (Did y'all know it apparently starred Michael Park, Henry Simmons and future GL star Nicole Forester? I sure didn't.) BTW, it's apparently available for viewing by request in Malone's papers and material at Duke University. I would try it myself but it looks like it's in person only.

I had a look. It's late July and several eps of it at least are on Addie's playlist.

Lord! I think the island episodes are also on YT in full but I could be wrong. I've meant to watch them. What month?

A model Guza and co. emulated with Nikolas and Emily, though sadly not with the original performer.

That rarely happens.

Their names won't officially be on the show until sometime in the next couple weeks probably, but Errol has claimed they were brought in to redo the Jason return story first and foremost and that it may be a mix of material til then. They're clearly working over more than just that though IMO. Anyway, enjoy.

I'd watch til Spencer and Esme go into the drink, then skip to either Monday this week or last Friday (writing tweaks are evident in that and several episodes from last week in various stories, but PM/EK allegedly began heavily working over the Jason story this week).

I remember your posts. I found this stuff curious at the time too, along with the social media details where they touted inventing the soap opera. It was suspicious, but I thought it might have to do with releasing library/archive content down the line or maybe someday even revisiting some of the existing IP. I never once thought they'd come back in with an all-new show. I have suspected for some time that soaps would become the safe harbor in the wake of the streaming crash, and I talked about it a bit over the last year. But these changes at several networks are bigger and swifter than I'd anticipated.

From Simon Rosenberg, notably right while all the pundits mocked him in the midterms and I believe the time before that:

You should watch both. Joe crushed it and it's not going to be an equivocal thing - period. The only take the GOP has overnight is 'he's so angry'. Frank Luntz suddenly is fretting that Joe Biden is a loud, fiery man with too much energy. He basically turned the SOTU into a wrestling promo and he needed to, taunting and baiting them to lose it, because for better or worse that is the energy and fire required for this GOP and this election. When even insufferable Do Something king Will Stancil is pleased, you know it went over. The NYT mavens (Haberman, Jonathans Martin and Swan) were largely reduced to sniping about Ilhan Omar's reaction to the minor fuss of him saying 'illegal' (not that serious) and hmphing that he didn't listen to Ezra Klein's podcast begging for a brokered convention. A snarky Olivia Nuzzi reposted a few gifs of Uma Thurman getting shot with adrenaline in Pulp Fiction. Then they all logged off. No sign of Nate Silver, of course. Whenever Joe busts the conventional wisdom, these folks retire to the fainting couches for awhile.

More from Rolling Stone on the horrified GOP response to Katie Britt.

Joe has always been a closer - every time he is counted down and out, this happens. I knew it would in the 2020 primaries (even when I was supporting Warren, I knew he would close and anyone who thought otherwise was an idiot), I knew it would in the midterms and throughout his first term and I knew it would here. I knew it would be good but not quite this good. Turning it into a church show/rally was what was necessary. And he will do it again.

Fired up tonight. Like I kept saying: The media worked the age angle too early this year and last. This has turned into an energetic call and response rally and I suspect is playing very well. The Beltway will not be thrilled they can't tear it down, but the public will out. He is now actively baiting the GOP hecklers (who are mostly drowned out by a very loud Dem cheering section) and mocking them with their own policies.

And surprising perhaps in that a lot of folks have felt the show and/or Sony or the network worked for a long time to disassociate itself from its Black stars and audience for years. I wonder if that means anything will ever materially change at Y&R. I still have doubts. I certainly don't expect Victoria Rowell to ever return, though her turning up on The Gates would not shock me.