Vee

I don't think anyone thinks this will all change overnight because Licht is gone. (Nor would just getting Jeff Zucker back be a great help, IMO) Zaslav and Malone are still there. But this entire episode has been a thorough embarrassment for CNN and its parent company and will require real course correction. It is within these kinds of margins of unforced errors, failures and vulnerable windows that we as citizens are able to fight back and make our voices heard both with media and in politics as usual. Beltway-centric media will probably never stop venerating the Reagan-era belief that there is a silent center-right majority of Americans they have to constantly coddle, cater to and apologize to and for, at least probably not for much of my remaining lifetime. But changes have been made and more change can be made. You do that bit by bit, day by day, year after year with incidents like this. More about the Fall of Lich(t) - shades of the finale of Succession. As always, use archive.is to bypass paywalls on all these sites. Some office gossip and then a rare moment of clarity from the otherwise exhaustingly credulous ex-CNN Licht casualty Brian Stelter:

Is that what she actually said? Or did she just say they wrote incestuous feelings into the script and she didn't want to play them? Because Claudia and Johnny came off incestuous whether she played it or not.

Me neither. I think it just made sense for that family and story. I agree with everything else you said.

tbh the whole gothic, incestuous vibe of the Zacchara family was the major thing that made it stand out of interest to me. But no, I don't think Guza intended to make Claudia his mother. I just wasn't surprised at all when it happened.

Garin Wolf was the one who made it canon that Johnny was Claudia's son several years after Brown's exit. Guza had nothing to do with that. It didn't surprise me tbh, but there was always an incestuous element to their relationship which I thought was interesting onscreen.

You're going to have to elaborate on this.

Heavily rumored for maybe a year, but nice to have confirmed. @DRW50 Talk at the time suggested she was in the November specials, but I'd no idea. Now it seems she may be in for much more. What's curious is the question of how long she has been filming. I had heard last year she did the 60th specials, now it seems she has been sighted recently filming for Season 14 as well. If Mel Bush is now a recurring character over the next year (two if we count her cameo in POTD) I'll be pleased and very amused. Plus, there's this: RTD seems intent on regularly producing Who again, unlike some who shall remain nameless. More from RTD on Bonnie:

And now they'll all get pulled. There's a reason I didn't post the link.

Still the dumbest thing ever. I would not trade the Reva post-partum story or the Josh/Harley stuff for a joint exit. I love what I've seen of those stories.

Please pass along the SH dirt (or anything else you wish)! I won't be getting to it for at least a couple days. Yeah, I knew a lot of that SNL stuff already. I do wonder if there's more in the full chapter. I do find the whole of DW compelling, though - the history but also the material.

More from Ryan's book, about SNL. Book out's tomorrow. @DRW50

Another sobering, long thread. More. Even more.

Good for them! I'm not begrudging their children the work - Labine's children worked well with her on her shows. This just reminds me, though, of what was discussed a number of years ago by lifers in the business - these jobs, especially now in the streaming era of the WGA strike full of short-term 'mini rooms', are often ironically some of the most secure and lucrative writing positions in the field. They are carefully guarded and at times jealously protected by lifers who go from show to show, and provide for each other or for their families. Breaking in is very difficult because of that. Ten years ago I would never have thought we'd reach a point where writing for daytime is a safe harbor for the professional writer.

Didn't DAYS or GH put their kid on staff?

Frons did use the same backdrop for all three, which I hated. But I thought it only worked out well for AMC, which had a family album opening carefully tailored to them where the backdrop wasn't really noticeable. OLTL's was an afterthought and despicable. The worst AMC opening was the LA budget one which basically was a riff on late-stage GL openings IMO. Meanwhile: Jill Larson is also talking to Digest. Me being me, I haven't listened to it all yet - she's had such a vast career - but I did hone in on the AMC 2.0 stuff around 50 mins in. She mentions the last time she heard from Rob Wilson he was auditioning for 50 Shades of Grey but loved his company, lol. Jill was so good in the harrowing horror flick The Taking of Deborah Logan, BTW. I forgot Jill was the 'toothless old hairless hag' featured in the trailer for Scorsese's Shutter Island, lol.

Gannett journalists have been terrorized for years, it seems like. Meanwhile, back at the ranch: The bizarre end note about Zaslav sending an IG mash note to Stelter who he fired is the kicker for me.

God, what a fool.

Re: the past discussion, nobody's stopping anyone from posting anything. Dramatist has been an active poster in the PT for over a decade and was very polite about their personal preference. (This is the same reason most of us don't post a bunch of screencaps of primetime shows in those threads without content.) There's nothing wrong with approaching a thread as a relative newcomer and reading the room. Anyway: Meanwhile:

I agree. And as I said above, most of the interim stuff worked. Especially the Ryan saga with Felicia and Mac.

That was the impression I got. Riche was casting about for whatever could save the show or at least keep it afloat while she sorted through the chaos, and she found the youth set. Then they tried Mac and Felicia with KW's return, Ryan, Lucy's return, Scott and Dominique, etc. It worked for as long as it took to land Claire Labine and get L&L back on the books. They tried a lot to put Bill (and Holly) over in that year-plus too but of course it didn't work.

I had no idea Jade Goody's son(!!) was on the canvas as they play out a huge cancer death storyline. I hope he isn't too involved. Lisa again?? I'm always happy to see Lucy Benjamin, but...