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I've been looking forward to Ava Gardner. I adore her in On the Beach and Seven Days in May.

I'm almost a third of the way through the first mega-sized season (30 episodes - I haven't dealt with that in a long time), so I'll probably reserve my early commentary on the first part of Season 6 for when I hit 10. I'm not doing them episode by episode again any time soon lol, but I do have a lot to discuss in addition to what I already have mentioned here in the last couple pages. So far it seems the show has simply gone from strength to strength, and as I've said it seems Gary and Abby are better than ever together at this point - honest with each other about who they are but still carnally in sync and passionately fulfilled, in part because of how they differ and counter the other. I'm also enjoying the gradual deconstruction of Greg Sumner's character, digging beneath the grinning, opaque master politician who, as his wife says, always keeps his mask up. He really is coming apart.

Sarah lasted almost two years as Claudia. The writers didn't change, though Guza was on strike IIRC when Claudia first appeared and JFP crafted a lot of early material herself. I don't believe she was hired against Guza's will though (unlike JFP's attempt to craft frontburner solo story for Rick Hearst while he was away). Technically Claire Labine helped plan and mold the concept of Carly and may or may not have had her name on some of her most early episodes, I'm not sure, but she was gone before the character began airing and every writer who was part of both those teams (ValJean, Harris, Mulcahey) has gone to great pains to say that Guza was ultimately the main driver of creating that character. Madison on DAYS also lasted almost a year, along with her writers so no, it wasn't that brief.

This is a streaming service. There's no spoiler rules for a daily episode anyway.

It's like Lindsey wants them to stay in the minority. The WH and Dems have wisely pounced. The Beltway would love to find a way to nuance this because they don't want to admit that their good friends in the GOP or who their families vote for would actually do this for real, but it's not going to fly. This is the line that will be taken and that's why McConnell is already starting to distance himself.

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First William Klein, now this. A complex and at times punishing but still staggering legend. RIP. I've been meaning to dig deeper into his '80s work (after loving Every Man for Himself with Isabelle Huppert, very different from his classic films and experimenting with speed and motion) and I'll watch First Name: Carmen today (along with another Klein film). My Life to Live (Vivre Sa Vie) will never be equalled.

So happy for Sheryl Lee Ralph. She's been putting in amazing work forever, but I'll never forget her turn in To Sleep With Anger.

Both well deserved.

Yeah, that was my understanding. I just have never seen Shaw in the press shots of the cast for each season beyond the first (with all the families and their kids), whereas Petersen and Crowe both got to be in those as adults, as did Claudia Lonow and Lisa Hartman in Season 4 (pre-their opening credits additions). I think it's a shame if he never got to be in at least the press photos lol.

Wasn't Petersen in the opening for at least a couple seasons near the end? I have also seen him and Tonya Crowe in the yearly ensemble shots a la Lonow; I'm not sure if Steve Shaw ever made it into those.

I know very little about Olivia and her eventual mate. I'm just basking in the arboreal glory of Lotus Point, my new avatar.

I know eventually they dispense with Eric and Michael, but I wish they'd tried a little harder. I really am attached to Olivia and the two boys. I suppose when the dramatic center of your show is the parents it's understandable (and I know they tried with Michael and Paige together in some way), but it might have helped with future planning had the show tried to revamp and survive, as some have postulated. I think it could've been done for a few years at least, before the Moonves purge of the mid-late '90s, but judging by interviews it seems the will or interest was not there with the showrunners after fourteen years. Which I can't fault them for. I intend to ride Olivia's run out for as long as possible; she's great. I didn't know Crowe apparently auditioned for the post-Smith Emily Stewart recast (IIRC) on ATWT later on.

Meanwhile:

I assume it would have to be her drug habit that led to her being kept out of most of the latter half of Season 5 and then written out entirely. But Diana had very little place left to go at that point. I did cringe at her exit scene with Karen talking admiringly about how Diana had stuck to her guns on 'what she believed in,' even when everyone was against her. Really? We're glossing that over? It was at least nice to see her being loving to her mother in the final eps she appeared in, and it will be fun to see her again sometime in Season 14 (I've glimpsed some of her guest appearance and she looks great). I think part of Diana's behavior with Chip is realistic - the gawky, insecure, grieving and self-absorbed high school girl who never felt quite as beautiful or lucky as the others, feeling (as she herself said to him) 'lucky' to land a dreamy hunk like he appeared to be - and other parts just went way too far. I didn't really care to unpack or analyze it after a certain point, I just didn't want to see her anymore. Which is how the writers seemed to feel when they got rid of that messy thread in one rather hasty episode. I did find it interesting that as soon as Steve Shaw and Pat Petersen are added to the main 'co-starring' credit at the top of the episode, poor Tonya Crowe gets bumped back down to the guest stars in the end credits (she was the first of the three to go co-starring in Season 5, I believe). Maybe it was a space thing or timing given that Lonow is credited as a Special Guest Star on each of those episodes as they prep her exit.

In an apparent attempt to win the devotion of no one more than my eight year old self who was absolutely obsessed with this film when it was released, Disney+ has against all odds greenlit a sequel series to Ron Howard and George Lucas' cult fantasy film Willow. This was Lucasfilm's major bid for a fantasy epic in the late '80s post-Star Wars. Reviews and audience response were mixed. I loved it anyway. For those of you who have like much of planet Earth either forgotten Willow or never knew it existed, have a primer below: The Willow series looks a bit too plastic, modern and quippy in spots for my tastes, but the original film was not without plenty of often broad or anachronistic humor and was not entirely a genius script to begin with. It's from Lawrence Kasdan's son Jonathan who did the unfairly maligned Solo so it's very clearly still a Lucas gang affair. I was obsessed with this film, its beautiful score and cast as a kid. The ensemble included Warwick Davis in the title role (who Lucas plucked out of obscurity as a child to play Wicket the Ewok in Return of the Jedi, then gave a starring role in this film), Jean Marsh as Queen Bavmorda, my first scorching glimpse of Val Kilmer as Madmartigan and most especially Joanne Whalley, his future IRL wife, as Sorsha the warrior princess, decked out in Kurosawa-inspired samurai armor. She was my brutalist heroine (and is also great in the classic mystical-conspiracy UK miniseries Edge of Darkness). I cannot believe they got her to come back for this and that she still looks every bit the part. I am pretty cynical about the Disney content factory and its many blunders outside of Feige's Marvel fiefdom, but with Willow I don't really care how bad it is or how completely needless and unasked for a sequel project is; I'll watch it because I was one of about a hundred kids who loved the original. I'm also pleased they got Kevin Pollak as one of the two pixies from the original film. So here's the Willow thread no one asked for.

Not at all. It's a huge issue in Brooklyn.

Crime is not gonna cut it, lol.

This was an endless scandal in New York.

It really is absolutely amazing.

It looks like New Age Robot Heaven! They even introduced it in a fly-over with synths!

I'm already four eps into Season 6. I will give some more thoughts on the end of S5 and this new beginning in overview later, but for now I'll just say the new Gary Ewing-friendly vision of the finally-real Lotus Point with its vast vistas, solar houses and New Age futurist greened biosphere offices is stunning - it looks like something out of '70s British sci-fi or Silent Running when Gary first shows it to Karen. I don't understand how they kept getting more money for these insane gigantic locations and stunning new sets year after year, but I guess that's the epoch of the '80s megasoap for you. (Meanwhile, Dallas still has the rinky-dink pool patio set and yellow floaties - where is their money going?) It is really hard to put this show down for any length of time when everyone and everything continues to look stunning and the characters continue to grow and evolve while their business/social arenas continue to build out like this too. Gary and Abby are at maybe their very best together ever in these early episodes for me, after once again reaching new lows when she was exposed last season, and it is thrilling to see Karen at Lotus Point.