Vee

Oh God.

Threads links don't seem to auto-embed yet (FYI @Errol, not that I suspect there's anything he can do), so let's try this: Margaret Sullivan on the late Eric Boehlert, and the need for more non-'neutral' media framing.

Yeah, I heard it was real awful. I didn't see her on that show. I was a booster of her on OLTL at the time because she had a unique look, but watching some of that material in recent years I think she is raw at best.

Yep, though I'm not if that was the week before or after Andrew and Nora had two separate clunky monologues which began with 'you/Jen reminds me of a young girl I used to know named Marty Saybrooke.'

The difference is that for the bulk of his time onscreen (about a year) BMH's Joey was a central male lead and there was a clear investment in him by that creative regime, just with all the wrong pairings and choices. He had an actual identity as a curate and a priest in training, and I cared about that aspect of his personality and that new role he had on the show. Tom Degnan's Joey was always simply a plot device and afterthought for the show, a B or C-story for Gina Tognoni's Kelly after the chemistry tests with ME and TSJ had failed to catch fire. Even after he arrived, she was finally given a hot and heavy affair plotline with ME for several months. Clueless Joey was only there to be duped by his fiance Aubrey (Terri Conn) and Cutter while Kelly pined, he was there to service the story of actors and characters they actually had interest in. Everything about Malone's second run is either squandered potential or deranged avant-garde camp, or both. We don't know exactly when Sarah Buxton was in the mix. IIRC Gary Tomlin considered that a year before, and Tomlin largely predated Frons who ousted him.

Yes, those are very different.

I loved Joey as a curate/minister. At his best he'd always been a very soulful character with some deep roots in Andrew's early storylines with Billy Douglas, etc. in the Chris McKenna era. His very effective, atmospheric re-introduction during the storm storyline in February '03 had him a mysterious young man wandering about town in the snow, meeting people, etc. and then they did the reveal with his arrival at Llanfair, and his interactions with Viki and Jessica were like a warm hug - Bruce Michael Hall was a green actor but was at his best with that stuff, with the family, with his mother and with his siblings. He had a Luke Skywalker/Mark Hamill quality; noble, serene, and non-judgmental including with his arrogant brother who'd stolen his teen sweetheart, a fact that often bubbled under the surface of their interactions. (They also brought Hall back in spring/summer '04 after his initial exit for the heart transplant story with Viki, and he was a rock there too.) For the first time since at least Nathan Fillion's early tenure, they seemed to have a clear concept of who Joey was vs. other male leads and a vision for who he could be, and it was a unique take. Many people hated Joey the priest, and we never got a clear answer for what happened with him and the church when he returned in 2010 doing photography again (there's a good story there). But photography had remained his sideline even while he was a curate. I blame the storyline, not the concept - the romance with Jen, the show's weakest performer next to a very green newcomer, the horrid stuff with him caught between her and Flash. It was basically trying to xerox some of Andrew's old stories with Marty, Megan, etc. told with some of the worst possible replacements. There's something to be said for legacy stories and roles like the one Joey filled after Andrew (who was his mentor in this period), but not when your Marty stand-in is the unbelievably wooden Jessica Morris. The attempts with Joey and post-Joey to try to retrofit her into a wild child heroine never worked for me, because she was just terrible. And Joey's story was doomed when that was the focus. I know @DRW50 was a fan of some of this Joey's stuff too, I think we're the only two people. There used to be a lot of it spread out all over YT, there might still be. I know there was a lot of Mitch material and Walker/Todd TSJ stuff from that year. Ironically, Natalie and Cris had very little to do for most of 2003. They were the breakout summer couple of 2002 and were all over the place, very popular with the audience, then in early '03 they hit the backburner hard for most of the year while the new regime prioritized the Jessica recast (with Jessica losing most of her IQ and character integrity before and after romancing Antonio) in story. MA/Natalie didn't get big story again until David Fumero's exit in the fall with Easton's introduction. The Victor resurrection should never have happened and was fortunately mostly retconned by RC.

They mentioned him a lot that year as part of the Flash story - she's looking for C.J., where is C.J., C.J. is a Marine stationed in the Indian Ocean, etc etc. And then he never turned up. The gay thing was the online rumor mill plus a lot of scripted implication - the kids ran away from Tina and Cain Rogan for reasons, then Paul comes to town seeming shy and secretive and looking for his old soldier buddy and not wanting to elaborate, etc. That all changed when Brock Cuchna was fired and the Babe/AMC crossover angle came in, plus they clearly abandoned the whole storyline and the initial plans to recast Tina with Cali Timmons, etc. It was such a circular topic of discussion that it eventually became a running joke online for years that Gay C.J. would turn up anyday. The last C.J. was ever heard from onscreen though is when Tina and Cord called the kids on their phones at the chapel just before their impromptu wedding in late 2011; they all seemed on good terms and the kids apparently wished them well. Amusingly, the closest we ever got to actually seeing C.J. was when the very handsome, all grown up Tyler Noyes (who'd played him in the '90s) turned up with his sister at the Prospect Park revival premiere. His sister Amber played Matthew's annoying online girlfriend Michelle in the Hulu show. Yes, I have written about this era many times in this thread, lol. It was completely insane and at least as bonkers to watch day to day as DAYS at the time, but with a far more pretentious bent. (It makes me think in later years that Malone would've done well at DAYS) The mystical Bahdra diamond storyline you mention with the Indiana Jones trap room Blair and Dorian got caught in beneath Llanfair was only a fraction of the madness. There were some worthwhile ideas, even the wilder ones, but so many were either mangled (Joey taking Andrew's mantle on the show, a wonderful idea poorly handled after an excellent reintroduction by leaning into the awful romance with Jen and the thing with Flash IMO) or just bad outright.

It really wasn't that serious, but tongues wagged for a hot minute at the time. It was some sort of goth-themed, BDSM-tinged artsy collection but it wasn't hardcore pornography. I felt bad for Purdee and the actors tbh. I felt the same about SW's look. I remember they had her little sister(?) play little Sarah in an unnecessary flashback to the Al/C.J. well caper of '93, IIRC. Oh, I hate what happened to Al, etc. I've always hated it. I felt NM was miscast from the beginning, but they didn't have to kill him off despite his BTS issues. That being said, Al and Marcie worked. The C.J. mystery of that era is one for the ages. Flash's stated reason for being back in town was to find her brother; she never did (the Buchanans later said he was stationed in the Indian Ocean). A couple months later, Brock Cuchna's sexually vague ex-military man Paul Cramer initially came to town also looking for C.J., who he had a murky and mysterious past with on the job; he never found him. Much was made in exposition of Flash/Sarah and C.J. running away from home and Tina in Baltimore, who seemed primed to be the homophobic parent in some sort of hinted-at gay storyline with her son. That would've been a tacky, lazy choice by Michael Malone on par with what he'd attempted with Becky Lee Abbott in 1996 (he'd wanted Becky Lee to be a racist against her son Drew dating Rachel Gannon), but it would've been nice to have them all back. But the show was heavily interfered with during Malone's second run in the 2000s, and when it wasn't he still did pretty bad work.

SW was fired. I thought the character and actress had potential from the jump - unique look and a very current (if now very, very dated) style at the time. But the writing for the character was a mess, and looking back at SW's performance in recent years I think she was all over the place at best. Some of her work is really bad. Flash was introduced as a young runaway living on the streets who Bruce Michael Hall's curate Joey tried to mentor, with a romantic edge to some of their interaction. The issue there is that AFAIK, she was always intended to be his cousin Sarah Roberts (hence her quest to find her ever-mysterious brother C.J. the Marine, who she never did find but who the show allegedly had all sorts of unmade LGBT story plans for - this was in the period they were considering AW's Cali Timmons to play deadbeat mom Tina). But Brian Frons was heavily involved in the ABC soaps' creative trajectory at this time, and allegedly the word came from either him, someone else involved in the focus groups or both, to leave it open for a time as to whether Flash and Joey were related or not. This resulted in the bizarre love triangle dynamic with Joey, Flash and Jen Rappaport in the spring and summer of 2003, in which none of the parties involved were exactly the strongest actors and the writing was even worse. Then came the infamous day when they did reveal Flash was Sarah and had her utter the immortal line to Joey, "I thought because we were cousins it would be okay." I thought Flash the street urchin/rocker was a decent concept very poorly executed. I thought Shanelle Workman's singing was rough. She may or may not have also hurt her stock at ABC with the erotically-tinged art photoshoot Nathan Purdee did at the time with several young actors at the show; there was nothing illegal or untoward about it, but some prudish fans and reporters took note of it. Anyway, by the time Flash's identity was officially revealed the entire storyline was already very unpopular with the audience and so was she. I hoped she might recoup as a character and the show attempted to regroup - they put her mostly in scenes with her grandfather Asa opposite Phil Carey for the next several months, and with her bandmate Riley Colson, played by Jay Wilkison. Riley was just a recurring bit player who the audience had taken a liking to, so OLTL upped Wilkison to a larger role and then to contract and decided to see if they could get the audience to like Flash/Sarah more by keeping her largely in scenes with Asa and Riley and minimal airtime. It didn't work, and she was written out in early '04 after months of being on the backburner. Meanwhile, Riley became much more prominent in story owing to Jay Wilkison's talent and popularity with the audience. I think Flash was a good idea ruined almost immediately. Justis Bolding was somewhat similar to SW in type and personality, but bland. Ultimately Sarah Roberts as a character was a spare part - they never figured what to do with her or who she was. Flash came close to a direction, but that was a mess from the jump. Still, she looked like no one else on ABC Daytime at that time, so there's that.

I still want to know what exactly happened with Sheri Anderson and the other guy (Ryan Quan?).

I think Labine was intrigued by the idea of Mo Garrett with Justin Deas, which in fairness so was I - on paper. In practice, it doesn't seem like anything onscreen actually worked or was organic. And the Children's Hour-esque story they didn't do with her and Olivia during that creative regime just seems like a sketchy idea.

I did really enjoy the early period of 1840, and adored Samantha/Virginia Vestoff and that triangle. But I blame the show's usual failings with plotting and character management for what became of her and that story - I actually loved Kate Jackson in the 1970 storyline, where I thought Daphne was a great replacement for Vicki/Alexandra Moltke. (She probably should've been a Vicki recast, as they had her wearing Vicki's literal wardrobe as stated in the story.) But yes, it's hard to argue that the original very strong story does not goes south when various elements appear.

That was when I knew Guza and co. had completely discarded her. It is a miracle in and of itself that Nancy got out of that zone later on in the Julian years, for better or worse. Of course now she's back there with Gregory, the living Gettysburg bust.

See also: Scorpio and Diane on GH (or the past attempt at pairing Mac and Alexis in the late 2000s-early 2010s when both were especially out of favor). Makes no sense.

Yeah, he can eat it.

Folks, Donna just says things, is constantly behind the times and thinks she is the only one breaking news like on Usenet. Everyone here knew Kriegel was a temp weeks ago and there is no news of another actor. Stop paying attention.

It was truly odd to introduce a Black youth named T.J. on GH who is not Tom Hardy Jr., but I digress. I would bring Thomas/Tom Jr. back as a doctor on the frontburner. I have no particular investment in T.J. because they haven't bothered to write for him since Tequan Richmond. Tajh Bellow is not untalented, but the character feels like a spent shell to me - same as Molly, same as Kristina in some ways, same reason Michael and Maxie should be gone for a number of years. I would also have Gina Tognoni as Sarah Webber, a major surgeon and seemingly happy mother/wife/career woman who Liz chafes in the shadow of. And of course the troublesome Jeff and Carolyn would return (both recast again). The hospital would resume being a major hub. I've said before that I would bring on Angie as a guest doctor for an arc re: abortion with Portia in the lead role as the physician bucking a local law, but it would only be a brief appearance with her backing Portia up and Debbi Morgan getting to deliver the message to the audience in her inimitable way. The show doesn't need to be repopulated by even more characters from other soaps. (And yes, there would be an Ellen Burgess mention) David Hayward is another story, that's an opportunity where I might seriously consider having him recur and come in and out and make trouble from time to time (though I'd probably say he's still happily married to Cara with their son, while maybe teasing the Anna thing).

Yeah, I'm not signing up to browse this app anymore than I did Twitter.

More on the pulled story. Article is free.

In a strange twist of fate, I can see the above tweet but not whatever George is reacting to nor can I navigate Twitter whatsoever.

GQ mysteriously pulled this story about Zaslav.

I actually haven't visited the vault in some time, and my old link from some months ago says it's too busy or something. If there's a new link anyone who can DM it to me is much appreciated.

Will it be up on Paramount?

Nope! Still bad!