Vee

Snooze and lose! Austin has never worked - the initial attempt to pair him with Maxie was gross - but ever since they tried moving him to Ava, had him vacillate between frame-up artist and conspirator and embroiled him in everything with his weird offscreen crime family, he's come off increasingly sinister, unsympathetic and villainous. He's reeked of dead man walking for at least this past year. I'm just amazed it appears to be for real this time. I thought Frank would never let him go. If he's done Easton has to be next. Finn is at least as irrelevant and sad a character at this point as Austin.

Roger Howarth is (finally!!) done. SOD interview here. Also:

RTD's latest Letter from the Showrunner from DWM:

I may not understand why people still watch the test pattern formerly known as Y&R but I don't think we need to haunt the threads critiquing their posts for even daring to view it. Let's let folks watch DAYS even if Mr. Twink Death 2023 is over on Hallmark and not currently on contract.

Seriously, what happened to Sheri Anderson being co-head or advisor or whatever? Where did she go?

Part 1 of a great 60-year anniversary testimonial.

@DRW50 and I or others have hashed this out many a time over the years, but given the recent Hallmark TV movie/series boom - even on cable instead of streaming - I would argue there is more of a place for a reinvented GL than ever with a progressive glow-up like that content (I'm not saying Hallmark movies are good or works of genius, but they occupy a specific niche and are doing so very successfully). If there's one soap that reminds me of the Hallmark branding it is GL at its best. Sadly getting execs to consider stuff like this (let alone P&G letting go of control of their dead brands they have zero interest in) is, as you have said, Errol, an uphill climb at best. ABC didn't even make a real effort to reexamine AMC and OLTL at the height of the streaming boom, and CBS/P&G are far less likely.

I just know Donna Wandrey who I know well from Dark Shadows was apparently one of the Barbaras. Maybe the first?

Bonnie Langford talks to the Telegraph. It's trickily paywalled, but I managed to grab the pertinent section:

I think the Chappelle's Show Making the Band sketch (featuring the exodus to Junior's) is more famous than the actual show tbh.

Particularly interesting: Apparently in the new DW Unleashed BTS special, RTD indicates that I'm fine with the change tbh; Bleach is dynamic, fearsome and frankly more menacing without all the makeup. has never been super compelling to me and this makes him a new creature.

The Children in Need short - "Destination: Skaro". That is Julian Bleach from Series 4 sans makeup as

Grain of salt:

This... sounds like a recipe for boomer backlash given the critical drubbing of his recent projects but I am happy for Moffat, Karen and Alex. Meanwhile:

I think 'found family' is valid enough for soaps - Melrose Place, and shows like Degrassi, The O.C., 90210, etc. used it to great effect for decades. It's the execution and stories that bear it out. The City's found family was not the issue for me (though I think they could and should have woven in more direct family ties, like Ava and Alex's kids), but it did a lot very fast for daytime, in terms of changes and taking risks, and it didn't have good enough story to back it up.

This appears to be Ncuti confirming what has recently been rumored - that next week's BBC repeat of the docufilm An Adventure in Space and Time, about the creation of DW, will feature him in the key final scene. It shows William Hartnell seeing a vision of the latest Doctor of the period when it aired (2013) - at that time, it was Matt Smith. The film's writer, Mark Gatiss, has long suggested the BBC update the shot regularly with an appearance from the incumbent Doctor whenever it re-airs. This appears to be the fulfillment of that.

The cast list for the very mysterious second special has three actors - Tennant, Tate and a "Susan Twist". Who may be a real actor with a real CV, or may be well, you know.

Wow. @DRW50 I checked; they even have the Evil of the Daleks reconstruction Britbox hadn't put up!

I know that had they continued they'd apparently intended to reintroduce Ava/Alex's kids (presumably SORASed) for conflict with Alex and Jocelyn, among others. I think they'd hoped to become more conventional in their family/story structure to retool. I can understand that impulse given their dire situation, but I think it would have been a creative mistake to go too far. Someday the Bourbon Street pilot will leak. RIP Michael Malone.

I wondered a bit about it at the time. But I couldn't really be bothered with it, as I could see Deborah moving on out of that mausoleum (maybe with the hunky blue-collar Clay lookalike she meets in the finale) over the course of close to 20 years. Nonetheless, yes, I would absolutely do a one-off Halloween episode in Corinth with some GH or whoever teens to honor the show - and maybe see if Randolph Mantooth and Lisa Peluso as a reunited Alex and Ava, or Noelle Beck or whoever would be willing to appear at the end as a contrast to spooky Gwyneth. I do think TC was ahead of its time slightly in terms of the handheld filming, the setting of young or upwardly mobile people in NYC starting over, the found family concept, etc. I think it was modern and I think there are real things to be learned from it still - I liked a lot of things about it. But I think the quality stories often just weren't there.

More of The Daleks in color.

A glimpse of the colorization: