Vee

Louise Fletcher was so good in so many things (and was the inspiration for Lily Tomlin's character in Nashville but didn't get the part, something she never forgave Robert Altman for), but there was such a specific artistry and tone to her work that it could be mistaken for stilted or alien. It wasn't, it was simply on its own unmistakable wavelength. Most know her from her big Oscar-winning role, but I know her best from Flowers in the Attic and other roles, like when I watched her valiantly attempt to carry the weight of the hysterically bad Exorcist II: The Heretic (in a role originally written for George Segal) - nothing broke her stride. Most of all, I'll remember her most as the very complex antiheroine/villain Kai Winn on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a character that ran the gamut of everything from religious fundamentalist to a quietly revolutionary woman of faith, from a craven and ambitious power player to a broken and disillusioned ex-believer, to a liberated woman who finally finds personal passion in the arms of a terrible dark force.

She was not that much younger by soap recast standards, lol (11 years). But no, Luner was starring on Savannah as a vixen in her 20s when Adam and Liza were first together. The issue wasn't the age IIRC so much as JL being a complete miscast. Trevor St. John for Stephen Nichols and William Russ is much, much more extreme de-SORAS.

Shorter opening, but cute. I'm a little surprised Katey Sagal isn't in there - Louise is now married to Dan, right? I guess she's still technically recurring.

WTF?? It's giving Foxy Roxy's Hair Haven!

That's what this corner of the show has been since Jordan #1, who also was never a fleshed-out character despite poor Vinessa Antoine's talent - the sidelined 'Black storyline'. They do not invest in these adult characters or care about them at all, it is B/C-story material at best for thin characters designed to isolate them together while saying 'we write for Black people'. Most of them are worthless to me except Brook Kerr as Portia and poor Tags, I stopped caring about Curtis years ago and Turner seems checked out. And as for the teens, as I've said there is a reason Spencer and Trina have yet to even kiss IMO.

Yeah, I get part of the complaint but took some of her comments re: the timeslot with a grain of salt. She is also clearly in her cups lol.

Jasmine Guy, Kadeem Hardison and several glasses of champagne have her trending from The Breakfast Club today:

This show has been an unexpected surprise. I was well and truly over GOT by the end of its overstuffed and abridged final two seasons, particularly with its penultimate 'blockbuster season' being a truly strange marathon of viewings on Sunday nights in 2017 alongside David Lynch's Twin Peaks Season 3, where one show seemed desperate to impress and deliver Big Moments and insane FX action while speedrunning the plot and often tripping over itself and the other simply didn't give a fùck, did as it pleased and remains renowned today. (Guess which is which.) The final two years of GOT had their great moments and sequences, and I'm not one of those people who disdains all of the ending run or thinks it's all bad - I think where Daenerys ended up was what was intended by Martin from the start, and I think Bran as the king has a certain poetry to it. But the plotting, character beats and pace got very lazy and rushed, especially re: Daenerys (and I didn't think Bran needed to be left an emotionless zombie), and ultimately the prophesied Long Night came to very little too. It was clear the showrunners (who GRRM has since said left him on read a few years prior) were looking towards their next big projects and got arrogant; to date all of those projects (Star Wars, the unfortunate-sounding HBO 'what if slavery survived' show) have evaporated. I laughed at the announcement of another GOT spinoff all about the Targaryens; I thought it was cliche, cynical and tired, trading on the audience's uncritical love of Daenerys while failing to understand that ultimately she was an antihero and tragic villain. (To this day people still claim GOT ruined Daenerys' heroic character, but IMO it was the rushed later writing that failed to fully sell getting her to where she was always meant to go; Emilia Clarke always did great work.) I just didn't think there was much interesting left to say about 'woo dragons' given the intense feelings about the overexposed final seasons which have yet to cool down, and I felt the GOT brand itself needed a long rest. So imagine my amazement that so far, HOTD - a show I only picked up out of sheer exhaustion and boredom in the summer of COVID Year 3 to watch something fluffy - is pretty solid. The deeper involvement of Martin, who seems to be very closely tied to the new showrunners on a personal level, shines through especially in the aesthetic, which is more colorful and high fantasy, less grungy than the later years of Westeros; I love Daemon Targaryen's OTT Final Fantasy-esque armor and elaborate helmet, the more vibrant colors, and the commonplace magic of dragons simply being a part of their lives. There seems to be less self-consciousness about leaning into these aspects of the source text, because this is a different era in the history (173? years prior to GOT) and also, of course, because GOT came first and did it well. Whatever we can say about GOT's ups and downs it stepped into a breach largely populated only by cheap basic cable shows like Xena, etc. and made fantasy more palatable to a broad and critical audience. Now that that's done, its spinoff is allowed to go more vibrant and wild with the fantastical elements or earnest nature. Firstly, it's nice to finally see Matt Smith in a role that isn't utterly demeaning like most of his attempts to conquer America post-Doctor Who. He looked absolutely ridiculous in the promotional material with that long wig, but he is playing a deeply nuanced antihero here who is both vicious and awful and layered and human in equal measure. (Also, the wig is thankfully gone) I've loved Paddy Considine since I first saw him as the Irish immigrant father in Jim Sheridan's wonderful In America, and he's been in so many great films since. He's not the actor you would expect to be donning a ridiculous Targaryen wig but he plays King Viserys very well, full of flaws and weakness despite what seems to be a good if deeply imperfect heart (wedding and bedding his daughter's unenthusiastic best friend to avoid being wed to a twelve year old); one quickly assumes he will get Ned Stark'ed or is not long for the show. Milly Alcock is the really excellent standout as the younger Rhaenrya, who is the central character but not a typical heroine like Arya, and it's going to be a loss to see her SORASed by the older adult performer in the next time-jump. Equally of note, the addition of a key family of color and Black characters up front feels like something that makes the original GOT and its ancillary Black characters a bit of a dinosaur already. And the integral presence of a talented female director, Claire Kilner, who talks at length in the BTS material of using the female lens to focus on Rhaenyra's agency in sex, and recontextualize how they present sex scenes on the show overall - while openly discussing her own struggle with how to do that, and the experience of largely seeing only male-directed sex scenes growing up and working in media - is really fascinating, important stuff. The regular timeskips between episodes of months and then years - Viserys going from wedding Alicent to her having his toddler son between episodes, three years apart - are not something you'd expect to work so well, but they do here because of the apparently very broad and far-reaching source text for this show (not ASOIAF) which I have not read, and because it feels like there is very little wasted movement, time and very little fat; knowing how much ground they will have to cover, they simply briskly move through story, evolution and character beats while also not feeling terribly hurried - it feels like a very focused macro-view of this world (which is still largely limited to King's Landing and its associated key families) with its own rhythm, its own rules and ethos, versus having to bounce around frenetically while trying to balance GRRM's massive and incredibly detailed original main text. Because this period in GOT history is apparently very broadly outlined in its source book, they can do what they want but (allegedly, so I've heard) intend to keep this show to 3-4 seasons maximum - which is a big boon for it, IMO. Not drawing story out unnecessarily will be a big advantage, as opposed to GOT where they treaded water at a number of periods (I'll never forget Dorne) and then by the end, when time was needed and crucial, everyone seemed to be looking for the fire exits instead. It's strange to watch a 21st century show with so many broad narrative ellipses, let alone ellipses that work - it reminds me a bit of how I Claudius did them. Next week is, I believe, eight years and the SORASing of all the younger leads. Anyway, so far I've been pleasantly surprised. The new pace, the new style, the wide and expansive timespan and shift in perspective and increased sensitivity make it worthwhile. It could shít the bed and become another lazy new iteration of what Ian McShane famously dismissed as 'tits and dragons,' but for now it's got me into it. And yes, it makes a really unique and oddly appropriate companion viewing for Knots Landing - they're both soaps. (Amusingly, I think it was the Washington Post or another major paper that dismissed HOTD early on as 'the Knots Landing to GOT's Dallas' - go figure)

I'll get there eventually lol. I know she does move back and is embroiled in the final storyline in some way, but I'm not going to speak out of turn on it. I wouldn't want to opine about that blind but I agree that barring any financial ups and downs for her, Abby moving back to the neighborhood at that point might kind of be like what's been discussed in the Melrose Place thread about the implausibility of Amanda, etc. still living in that complex after becoming the CEO of an advertising agency. This season hits different for me vs. S5, which I previously thought was a considerable level up from S4 (which I also felt that way about for it vs. 3, lol). Maybe it's the next level beauty of Lotus Point and the intricacy of that setup and how it draws people like Karen into the workplace too, and how much more functional, candid, mature and fun Gary and Abby's renewed marriage is (so far), and maybe the slow exploration of Sumner's character as well as he begins to lose his armor. Season 5 was excellent, but this may be better for me so far (even if Laura's and to a degree Sumner's role is definitely smaller atm). I know there's a lot of opinions about the latter half of it though I know no details, but we'll get there when we get there. I am about to wrap ep 10, so then I have to compile a lot of thoughts lol.

I thought it was common knowledge Clink/Boom was all Guza.

An illuminating profile with Pine Valley's own: As always, you can find a non-paywalled copy here c/o archive.is.

I can't speak to later at all, but Abby still feels like one to me after the long absence in Season 6 - I think it's the deep ties to Karen and the boys, Sid, her kids' roots there, etc. that do it. Gary is the same, especially since Karen, Laura and Val have all more recently renewed their association and friendship with Gary after a realistic period of estrangement in Season 4 and for Karen some of S5.

What??

That actually goes way back to the beginning (though I'm sure you know this better than I); Olivia came onto the show plagued by nightmares and often would go to Abby (or when staying there, Val) upon waking. She kept having them for ages, although I was also a bit surprised that the Olivia who has noticeably physically matured since last season would crawl into bed with Abby again. I too thought it was a deliberate parallel and a suggestion of her having a premonition; I loved that moment. The magic of the cul-de-sac and neighborhood arena for all the characters still hasn't faded - the Thanksgiving scenes in Episode 9 were wonderfully heartfelt and unforced. I'll try to cover as much of this stuff from the last 10 eps and the very end of Season 5 more as I can soon, though I've talked about a fair bit already. (It's notable that I believe Thanksgiving may have been Abby's first officially attended event in the cul-de-sac since Season 3 - she's stayed away years.)

I will have a lot to say about the first act of Season 6 soon enough, but I will say that the end of Episode 8 is a killer. Putting aside how hard it is to watch JVA in this material because everything is on her face, and Abby's genuinely sad and sympathetic reaction to the news about Val losing the babies in spite of everything (a moment virtually every other primetime soap I can recall would've played for camp bitchery), the final phone call from one of Easton/whoever's associates asking for 'the father's blood type' for 'the children in question' is so, so creepy. Donna Mills was so right to make them change the story and do it this way, and it still is just as effective and chilling if not far moreso, because Abby, who couldn't stomach Wolfbridge, would never have intended this either and has suddenly found herself trapped inside of this plot. The mounting confusion and then horror in Mills' eyes is just great, and it's through that that Abby can become an audience identification character in this story on a certain level, because they've been in on it for a few episodes ahead of her. The mindfuck on this reveal for a live audience back in the day must have been insane. Also, Val's infamous creepy doctor looks a lot like Larry Drake a.k.a. Dr. Giggles.

So was I. GH was only saved in 2012 by a Hail Mary from Frank Valentini and Ron Carlivati, and by ABC realizing their substitute shows did not cut it. The CBS soaps are plugging along only via inertia and international sales.

Dr. Nate suddenly being a business tycoon is just laughable. This show is Monopoly.

IMO Dark Shadows could've potentially survived in some form if Dan Curtis had been willing to modernize and merge its style with that of conventional daytime rhythms and romances of the period. He didn't do that because he was a showman and impresario first, not a showrunner. He was always chasing the next big hype in any project (his future cult classic Burnt Offerings is pretty much a more star-laden and violent retelling of Night of Dark Shadows) and it was a part of the show; investing in any real couples or characters beyond the monster set like Barnabas, Julia, Angelique, Quentin, etc. was not happening. The closest parallel to what DS could've become was and remains Edge of Night, which regularly told gothic, occasionally supernaturally-tinged mysteries and had a very unique flair and atmosphere but retained a core canvas of characters with popular couples and ongoing subplots in the present day world. There was a way to allow it to survive, but Curtis simply didn't build it for that. OTOH, more people in the mainstream remember DS and option it for future material today than Edge of Night, so what does that tell you?

Scott Bakula is a pretty classy and humble guy, so this reads like a very classy and humble hard diss to me lol. After months of the new show ducking and weaving around if he might do it:

Shades of Lotus Point. Is this dude outside??

They were allegedly lured onboard by someone in the state government. DOJ should look in this, it has to be illegal in some way. Meanwhile: