Vee

Of course! A clip from The Star Beast:

@Faulkner there's a quick clip of Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson at the end.

Happy Doctor Who Day. Watch to the end for a nice surprise.

Another one I must regrettably @DRW50 for:

Once again I come back to wishing these soaps loved viewers of color as much as those audiences have kept them alive for over 60 years.

That reminds me, I need to finish up my Knots Landing commentary on Season 6 and move into Season 7 over the holiday. Very curious to see Block back in the day.

I imagine that was part of it. But I think it was also very much the Roger Howarth stans leaping onto any port in a storm frankly - Paul and Emily Part Whatever got a lukewarm response from the general audience vs. all his other stories tanking, and like the Franco and Liz story at GH (where some but not all tired Becky Herbst fans were just happy to see her in a romance with a lead the EP was actually invested in), the Howarth stans didn't buy trouble and just said 'we'll take it!' Ironically, while the recast never worked I do think Roger had the most chemistry of all with Martha Byrne when he first arrived, but that always had an expiration date (Rose's death). And he did have chemistry with Cady initially. But when they put them together for real the following year in an overly schmoopy conventional love story, it was execrable. I do hope she speaks on it someday. The few tidbits Jeff Giles mentioned about it while discussing his oral history book (saying Susan had gathered the cast BTS in her last days and said she'd never been treated so poorly in her life) were something else. And we know Thorsten Kaye flatly refused to return as Patrick when asked to exit her character because of it. At least we know thanks to offhand mentions by Nora and Kevin on GH in recent years that "Dr. Saybrooke" is doing well, so I'm just going to chalk that whole mess up to the same tattoo cult drugs Ron Raines gave Clint on Hulu! Ah, soaps.

Also: The full Tom Baker interview.

This is cute.

I wonder what would have happened had Rauch's first choice (James DePaiva) said yes. The Alec Wallace debacle was one of my first glimpses of ATWT. It turned me right off the show. Like GL at the time, it had a thing about somewhat frowsy middle-aged women being treated as sex goddesses and everything revolving around Margo did not play to Ellen Dolan's strengths - despite allegedly being a cop, she came off at the time as weak and all about some young adults she was being mommy for (Eddie? Georgia?) and being sprung for this creepy guy. It was them struggling to write for different types of women and doing it poorly IMO. But I haven't seen any of that since it first aired.

It was terrible. And Susan left furious with the show. I'm pretty sure they ultimately parked Paul with Emily bc it was the only one of his pairings that had any mild audience support at all. It was a sort of surrender, even though they'd always been a mid-tier couple at best with Hensley in the role IIRC.

I was glad to see Waris Hussein honored. I think Bonnie looks stunning too. Tom is interviewed In the Times as well - I'd like to find the full interview. He looks frail these days but is still so Tom at 90, with a few choice quotes: His reaction to Gatwa is about what you'd expect.

I actually don't think he mugs nearly as much as he did on ATWT (I remember his first weeks - dear God). I think he came back to ABC very committed to making an effort, and did so with Todd. In a lot of 'normal' scenes on GH I think he's very earnest - sometimes too much so. But after a certain point with these two characters, all that trying with the wrong roles and bad writing leads to a succession of pulling faces, standard weepy voices or ill-advised improvisation and humor, and overall poor if limited choices as he tries to make it something worthwhile. And instead both he and the writing would often embarrass themselves. He's not trying to tank it like he did back in the day, but he's got no good options and no one telling him no.

It was such a disaster. But as I said, Roger was clearly just happy to no longer be playing a role that had weighed very heavily on him (as he talked about in that recent outside podcast). And I think when he came back to ABC that more calm ethos he's talked about a lot in recent years remained, including while playing Todd. He had put all the agita behind him and was just happy to be there and act. But he has only a certain range, he has limitations and weaknesses, and only so many abilities when faced with not one but two overplayed dud characters foisted on GH (not unlike his messy run as an overly reinvented Paul).

I still wonder what exactly happened there, because Susan and Howarth were both very vocal as recently as a few years ago on a non-soap interview about turning on the show when they attempted to possibly pair them romantically back in the '90s. I still suspect Susan was sold a bill of goods on that story and how it would play out; rumors years later suggested that Ron and Frank had attempted to nab Roger in 2008, hoping to do a Two Todds switch in the middle of that story, revealing then that "Todd" was not Todd. Regardless, we know Susan left in fury and disgust a few years later.

Wow. @DRW50 Article here.

Chambers was awful.

Advance reviews for The Star Beast are out, and seem pretty good on balance. Meanwhile:

Like Howarth but even moreso, Easton is limited. He reached the upper limits of what he was capable of a long time ago lol. Finn came on surprisingly interesting at first despite my disgust for ME's return hire; he was a quirky, strange character who had instant chemistry with Jane Elliot in their intro story together. But they moved him away from Tracy (which could've been a real May-December romance) into more conventional, McBain-esque limp mystery/intrigue storylines with 'hot' stars like Rebecca Budig that didn't pan out, then later desperation throws with fan faves Finola and finally Becky. Anything that was novel about Finn at the beginning has been gone for years, and he was best on this show as McBain - a character I utterly loathed on OLTL but who had found a decent niche on GH IMO, always chasing the next caper for the police with no regard for the mob. Like Todd for Howarth, it should've ended there for ME. I don't believe for a second that Maura West dropped a dime on him, Donna. Those two have gotten along like gangbusters since their first scenes as Franco and Ava ten years ago (and they had real chemistry back then despite the disgusting character RH was playing). She gushed about him as recently as this past summer. She's been doing it off and on for the past decade.

Yep. Susan turned them down, then Sarah was approached because I guess in his mind who could resist the casting coup of her and Michael Easton lol. IIRC she turned it down for some of the same reasons (I think Susan both didn't like Higley's pitch and was pregnant) and that's how in the eleventh hour we got Christina Chambers.

I still can't get over Frank trying for the Hail Mary of getting her to play NuMarty in 2006.

If Frank wanted Roger out for 'phoning it in' he would've done it years ago. And I watched Roger Howarth phone it in in real time back in the day, I know what that looks like. Frank has re-hired Roger over and over despite endless fan outcry. He has never gotten over losing him in 2003. In fairness I think RH has actually done his level best to make these terrible characters work. His exit interview (and a recent candid podcast interview about the gang rape story at OLTL, from a couple years back) indicates he's a much more mellow, sweet guy over the last 10-20 years and is just happy to not be playing a gang rapist anymore. He'll come in and play what they give him provided he's not dealing with that - and when he was playing Todd again on OLTL and GH in the 2010s, he did give that his all too. But he has a specific skill set, very specific old quirks and limitations, and these characters also just plain suck. It should've never gone on this long; he should've been gone with Todd. But I don't think he didn't try.

I'm wondering why they stepped in now if they let him bring him back after Franco. Under normal soap terms Austin was clearly walking dead most of this year for the reasons I stated - controversial actor, role that hasn't caught on, story that has the character compromised. But nothing about Howarth's run on GH has been normal, so I assumed despite all the major flags that he was on thin ice that FV would keep him going no matter what. Even now I have a hard time believing he won't keep Easton, and Finn has arguably been as irrelevant as Austin for a bit longer. I think they may cut him soon. Finn has been irrelevant for quite some time and has spent most of the last year-plus pining for Elizabeth in the background. It's reminded me of the waning days of Silas Clay, when he was quickly decoupled from Sam and just wandered the canvas mooning over Ava/Denise for awhile.

Not you and @Darn both roasting me for this lol! Writing "Unpopular Show Albatross Finally Gone" would've given it away!! I did hint at it in the tags.

No, this sounds done done. Roger says in the SOD interview Frank said they will not be offering him a new contract.