Vee

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.

I have seen this look on Ava's face in Spinelli's lair many times before. @DRW50 knows of her "Fire Marshall Bill" mode. Once Jason came into the picture she was shitting herself. I'm guessing she knows that if Jason is on the scene that whatever she is up to has gone sideways.

Ironically, if they'd fully invested in a diverse (and gay friendly) canvas like Mulcahey, etc. wanted them to, well...

You called this similarity - I was surprised and pleased they showed an actual flashback to Sonny shooting Dante yesterday.

I will simply pull up my GL revamp posts next time someone wants to talk about this in that thread. But as for ATWT, yes: I can see P&G capitalizing on things if The Gates does well by trying to get a nostalgia hit on these previously dead IPs from viewers who watched with their parents or grannies or babysitters (my sitter watched the '80s/early '90s CBS lineup religiously). So why not run ATWT for 10-15 mins on an app or something as a trial with a couple families? That's how it all started.

Speaking of which: I wonder if that mooted Soapdish TV revival with Whoopi also got the axe in the streaming pogroms. I can certainly buy all this, but I'm surprised if B&B is so weak. I know very little about the show's current state but I always assumed they were set for years to come despite quality bc of their international popularity. I will leave others to comment on the irony of soap operas now potentially stalking the territory of ailing programs such as The Talk, GMA3, etc.

In fairness (well, to myself) I was only mentioning GL in passing as I thought I was trying to pivot to an ATWT thought experiment, but yes, ITA.

I complimented her dialogue! That's it! Coming to work dressed like Harriet the Spy '96. On the Mountain Dew shelf while he plays Helldivers.

Again, if Y&R makes a change we will know something is up.

I haven't hit today's show yet, but I must say almost all the story segments are smarter now. The Spixie, etc. stuff has been consistently good for over a week IMO which is deeply unsettling for me, a person who has been almost as checked out on Maxie as KS clearly had been for years. She's put in real work over the last week and seems awake and feeling/looking better, and the scripts have been good. The stuff with her, Cody and Sasha yesterday was also smart, including Sasha's POV on women being handled/talked down to. I do not compliment any scenes featuring Sasha lightly, as I often willfully forget she exists when she is not physically on-camera. And Josh Kelly still has a facility for comedy: "Wait, so he conned you into letting him give you money? That bastard!" You better start watching, @Khan!

I'll be that guy talking crazy: Next to Edge of Night I think GL is the P&G soap most viable for a full-on revival, but I can see ATWT going the micro-soap route with a very small and limited core of characters/families that could do something like 10-15 mins online as an experiment. People have been talking about 'microsoaps' lately anyway. It would just be nice to see those classic brands revived in some small way, and to play with the permeability of the medium. As we've all been discussing lately (especially since yesterday's announcement), the TV business has little left to lose. And I'd be curious as to people's individual answers. Not just about Sheffer but about the various regimes following Marland before him. I just know nothing hooked me into the show in that loud, garish period at both ATWT and GL in the late '90s. Sheffer's show got me for awhile because of strong actors and what I felt were very good scripts early on, but its flaws and systemic issues have already been well-trod and are very valid, so as you and others have noted it's classed as unrecognizable for many too. Diving deep into the Marland years as I have since, you see what he did that was so problematic.

LOL, yesterday's gay gossip columnist at the Invader ("Adrian DeWitt") is a very obvious riff on George Sanders' famous character Addison DeWitt from All About Eve. Far from subtle, but it's fun and I don't mind. It's not as obnoxious as the constant in-jokes and references RC used to throw in. (I remember when his film/art references were more quiet and obscure, like the Alec Guinness classic The Horse's Mouth or when he quietly had Shane on OLTL - who the network had vetoed making gay - go off to the "Phil Jimenez Art School" in London, Phil Jimenez being a gay comic artist.) Meanwhile, they got Spinelli living in a studio maintenance closet/Korean Internet cafe. Go back to Maxie’s bro.

I knew about this but haven't looked at it in many years. The show was so huge in Japan.

That didn't exactly start with the last 3 days.