Vee

I'm so glad the show is doing so well. Rarely has a sitcom deserved it more. I just wish it wasn't off after tomorrow til January.

Kirstie had absolutely no ego onscreen, which is what made her so watchable on Cheers and so many other things, including an up and down movie career. Laurie Metcalf is often the same on Roseanne/The Conners; her visceral revulsion with herself after sleeping with Tom Arnold's character on that show is hysterical and reminded me a lot of Kirstie. It's funny that her other iconic role, Saavik in Star Trek, is so controlled and razor-precise, a total opposite of her typical wheelhouse, and yet she played both extremes (plus the steely noir antiheroine/villain in Carpenter's Village of the Damned that I mentioned in the edit above) perfectly. Then again, Saavik was an interesting Vulcan character for Trek. The dialogue didn't make it into most cuts of TWOK, but Saavik was actually half-Romulan, which meant she had access to emotions. So it makes sense for a little bit of the other Kirstie Alley to slip into that very different character, when in her first scene, facing impossible odds, the controlled Vulcan officer mutters 'damn.'

Russell masterfully working the rumor mill as always:

I saw Madhouse in the theater for some ungodly reason. The TV scene where Kirstie just slams her head on the anchor desk over and over always cracked me up. Kirstie was also one of the last of John Carpenter's gilt-edged genre women - stylish and forbidding in his flawed but disturbing remake of Village of the Damned with Christopher Reeve.

A lot will be made of Kirstie Alley's sad descent into right wing nuttery over the last decade or two, but I'll always remember her best and stay very fond of her work not just on Cheers, where she was a hysterical comic performer, but in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan where she instantly commanded the screen as Commander Saavik and remained unmatched (Kim Cattrall's character in STVI was originally intended to be Saavik, but they couldn't come to terms with Alley who had become a star) for years to come.

This is common with Ron and it's also what he's tried to do with Leo, Gwen, etc. and characters on his other shows (hence the attempts at cockeyed redemption arcs for Leo and Gwen which deliberately try to drag down more conventional protagonists to compare unfavorably with them). It's why they're trying to pair Leo with Sonny too. 'The love of a good man.' It's not like that kind of story in soaps with reformed antagonists or schemers is not as old as the hills, BTW. That in and of itself is not a bad trope. But it's how Ron does it - and how far he takes them both before the 'redemption' and after, while vacillating and wanting the character both ways - that always wrecks the execution. And frankly Kristen cannot and should not be redeemed IMO.

Filming for Season 14/the RTD2 era commences with Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson:

That (and the fact that the affair started before they separated from their spouses) is one reason it's unlikely to be a good idea.

I don't get what an Aremid spinoff would've consisted of. Did they expect Missy to leave the main show?

The question is, how many more embarrassments can Semafor stand both before and just after rolling out of the gate?

Al Strobel - MIKE, the One Armed Man of Twin Peaks - has passed.

RIP Al Strobel.

All of them treasures: We may begin to see leaked location shooting pix in the next weeks as has happened often over the last several Doctors dating back to at least Matt Smith's first block, so I assume they will finally unveil Fifteen's official look/costume sooner than later to get out in front of that. But I've been wrong before.

Judith Light (OLTL) is great in a supporting role in the new thriller The Menu, easily the sleeper hit of the year and really excellent.

It's also worth noting that TSJ got his role on OLTL by first auditioning for the Kevin Buchanan recast in '03. Except in his audition he (again) raged out, throwing papers, etc. around in Kevin's office or whatever. It was totally not Kevin, but the show saw his volatility and saved him for the Todd recast. It was a wise move, and some of his ugliest scenes on the show, like the ones I mentioned above, are his best. Whereas I hated his Death Row sobfest in which Todd/Victor was canonized instead. But I will never forget "Todd's" unmasking himself for Blair around Christmas that first year after she (having secretly learned "Walker" is "Todd") torments him for weeks and emasculates him, where he goes from mewling and pitying himself and whining like a child to snarling and almost striking her - he was an insect. TSJ had no ego about it and no illusions as to his character, and could play both good and truly foul. That's what made him fascinating when he cared.

The rare decent Atlantic article:

Two great non-entities that go great together, off my screen!

Graz is still extremely attractive, I like the beard and I'm hardly one to talk about age with the salt and pepper growing in my facial hair too, but continuity-wise it is awkward for him to be parading around with that while they're still trying to sell him as Stafford's son lol.

This has been going on since before the midterm results, but it's always nice to see it get more notice: