Vee

Speaking of poor HBO Max which has been shat on by Discovery, it gets better/worse over there:

I don't think doing the thing with the Hayeses is a bad idea at all. It's a neat promotional opportunity, and the fact is there's a lot of older fans who are still slow to adapt if they don't have a service already, usually hooked in by younger relatives. I will never forget the days of Facebook women asking how to "log in to the Hula" for AMC and OLTL. The real problem is the way this is being done - at the last minute seemingly, with minimal PR rollout and promotion even now less than two weeks away, like they're shoving an unwanted relation off onto the equally struggling platform and telling them it's their job to keep Peacock alive or die.

This, the DAYS move and the just-announced Halloween Ends simultaneous streaming release with theaters are all moves to desperately shore up the service.

For a minute there I thought they were about to give Obrecht a tribute episode and was prepared to lose my mind. I should elaborate on the above: I have no beef with Kathleen Gati; she does a great job. I remember her first day onscreen and she did grab me, and I wasn't surprised they kept using her. Obrecht was and is a fun recurring character. What I objected to later was what Ron Carlivati in particular does with virtually all villainous characters in later years of his career; he doesn't just sand off their edges and lean into camp to try to make them more superficially 'fun' (we can point to many examples at DAYS); he refuses to properly rehabilitate them or make them pay for their crimes (again, all of his soaps), while often simply attempting to devalue other heroic characters to try to make them morally 'equal' instead. It was regularly suggested in those years that Anna and Obrecht were 'the same' because Anna had conspired to try to kill Faison and hide his murder. That doesn't make them the same at all - Faison was a mad dog who had destroyed Anna's life and terrorized her family for decades. Obrecht was a willing participant in international terrorism and unethical medical experiments on innocent people. And when Obrecht was finally caught and Robin was freed, they went straight to having Obrecht get off scot-free, get a job at GH and start performing high camp musical numbers for everyone. It's great that Gati can sing and dance, and I enjoy the chemistry she has with people like Kin Shriner. But I'll never accept Obrecht as a part of the everyday canvas who people just are okay with having around. I do not buy into her twisted relationship with her daughter or her dead plastic son. No matter how many times she sings torch songs, I won't buy it. I have no problem with Gati coming in and out as Obrecht to stir up trouble on a semi-regular basis; she should keep doing that in a different way from how she is on the canvas now. I enjoy her work. But I don't forget who she is, and part of that is because TPTB have simply failed to deliver on making Obrecht as nuanced or rehabilitated a character as they clearly want her to be. Gati does great work, but she can't outrun really facile writing.

I thought Nick Stabile was terrible and embarrassing tbh. Just a random white dude playing the role seeming like a soccer dad. He was cute on Sunset Beach 25 years ago, but no. I'd give Coloma a chance with better writing.

For one thing, the lights were low. I am curious when the cancellation bell began ringing for GL as early as this, and what factors or circumstances led to it. I didn't know it was a going concern this early.

Reminds me of a terrible old commercial jingle: "$1.99, are you out of your mind?!"

The recast worked initially IMO, but the more they lean into conventional schmoopy romance with them the more embarrassing it gets and he seems like a trophy stud. Coloma's limits are also increasingly apparent, not that the writing is helping. It sounds like Tyler Christopher is doing much better these days and I'm glad, but from what he's candidly said about his illnesses and addiction I don't know that returning to GH would be good for his wellbeing any time soon. Nonetheless, he's probably the only Nikolas who can stand up against West unless MC improves or the writing does. I have said it before and I will say it again: I would have Victor force Laura into a marriage of convenience for a year or so over some Cassadine skullduggery. It would never turn romantic or sexual in any way but those two would a blast together to just clash nonstop, and you could play the drama with poor Kevin (who would ultimately go back to Lucy, while Laura would get a dashing new man at the end of it all).

Did Billy ever go to proper AA? Is he on the wagon? I can't even remember now.

It seems literally everyone at the show, from Ellen Holly to Erika Slezak and Bob Woods, hated him except for Joe Stuart. IIRC Morgan Freeman was also in the mix for the role, while I think Holly said she lobbied for her friend J.A. Preston (from Hill Street Blues, among other things) to get it.

Episode 12 (Denials): Chip is dead and I'm glad! They do a great job in this ep of dealing with the ensemble reactions and letting those beats play out. Starting with the response at the MacKenzie house vs. Westfork is a great touch, and Karen's very quiet, very numb drugged-up dismissal is really fascinating. The beauty of this performance, which I'll return to later, is that Michele Lee doesn't play it as though Karen is too doped up to have emotions or care. She very clearly is hit hard by the news about Chip and subsequent discussion of Diana - you can see it in her eyes and on her face - but she is drowning in a narcotic fugue which is the only way she can bear to process any of the things happening to her. So instead she just asks her son "would you set the table?" in response to the news, and it's heartwrenching. The ripple effect through the cast continues as Gary tells Abby he wants Diana out of Westfork (and rightly so), while Lilimae begins to process. Apparently her hearing over the hit and run was offscreen (whatever!) but she is still not at well, struggling to piece herself together, but we'll get to that too. Back at the ranch, Diana seems almost catatonic at first until she starts lashing out at everyone, telling Abby she wants to 'cherish the pain' of losing Chip - because of course she does, teenage drama is how she lives her entire life - and then having an absolutely repugnant conversation with Cathy, talking about how evil Ciji was and blaming the dead woman for everything. She seems perversely proud of how no one (and her mother most of all who she name-drops, because everything always goes back to Karen and family drama for Diana) could break her and her murderous man up. Please get her professional help and evict her from this ranch. I have just discovered Diana is apparently hanging around into early Season 6 and I am so ready to tap out on her. More All the President’s Men meetings in parking lots and construction sites for Mack and his mole in Wolfbridge. They've been made and the stool pigeon wants to bolt! Mack and Sumner clash over his targeting the bad guys and having a tail put on him - again, Sumner still seems to be getting played as an antagonist and troublemaker, albeit a nuanced, layered and charming one. I will have to dig into the KL interviews out there to see if I can find when they knew for certain he would stay beyond the season. I know it was supposedly an open-ended commitment but they thought he might only be there for the arc at first, until William Devane settled into how Knots did things. Karen responds to the current drama with continued lethargy, shellshock and dependency on her pills- the image of her staring at afternoon TV in her bathrobe was a lot. Chip/Tony's visiting sister Angie shows up and is all dollars and cents while Karen writhes at her very presence and the mention of Chip's name, with Angie wanting to know who'll pay for the funeral of her admittedly-worthless brother, and that seems to just about fit. There's a sliver of insight into the Fenice family's past, and how "Tony" was bad news even as a little boy, a creepy window into a shadowy before. "Tony always wanted the American dream," Angie says ruefully. That's not an entirely inaccurate take when you look at the worst of the American dream, especially in the '80s. When Cathy flees Westfork after Diana's screed, she heads to some dive with her old school buddies where improbably, the girl who 'can't sing' is in fact another incredible singer, courtesy of Lisa Hartman seizing the Stranger Things 4 spirit of summer 2022 and belting out Journey's 'Separate Ways" with inimitable power, infatuating a following Gary all over again. Are they really going to claim she just dabbled in singing before this? Come on. Laura and Ben have some surprising interaction in this episode in the cul-de-sac, first at Val's and then at Laura's, a house we haven't seen in ages, where we get a surprise glimpse of baby Jason who's gotten awfully big. Laura dummies up about Lotus Point when questioned; Ben is somehow already onto the property, apparently because Sumner has stuck his hand in re: Abby's variance. This is where we see the tentacles of an umbrella story unfurling into every aspect of the canvas in ways I hadn't expected. Not long after, we get our first meeting between Greg and Laura in his limo, where they joust about the variance and Lotus Point; Greg keeps her at bay, but he's already all smiles and charm, already flirting. Laura is clearly amused by him but doesn't want to be. Which begs another question: When did TPTB know they were going to try Greg and Laura? After this episode? Their chemistry is very intriguing here though not yet as incandescent as Mills and Devane (or McCashin and Shackelford, for that matter). Val finally admits that Lilimae is equating Ben with Chip, which I was waiting for. Julie Harris puts on a real clinic in this episode, with her amazing monologue at Chip's coffin where she talks about how even now she's searching for some human core of him, some 'private moment' where he could connect to the same kind of emotions - shame, guilt, love - that others feel about him. Later, her breakdown at a simple dinner at home is just brutal as the shame and horror of what she did to Chip (who deserved it!) finally overcomes her and she collapses in Val's arms. There's an ugly but real moment where Lilimae rejects Ben and orders him away when he tries to be of assistance. This is imperfect, flawed human behavior but it's completely real; you feel for Lilimae as Harris does some of her best work and also understand why she can't accept it from poor Ben, even when he's done nothing wrong. You understand both of them. The funeral and eulogy for Chip is from some poor long-suffering man of the cloth drafted for this mess, straining to find something positive to say. But his remarks are oddly apropos, saying Chip wanted to be 'something special and apart, yet part of the whole' and how he 'rewarded' people he cared for him with 'love, which made them feel better about themselves than they ever had before.' That is certainly one spin on his grifting for the sake of a public service! But it makes a sort of perverse sense. Sister Angie calls it a load of bull though, which it is, challenging Diana at the gravesite and calling her just another one of her awful brother's marks who he used. This is absolutely glorious to watch as Diana throws yet another gasping tantrum but for once no one can or will do anything about it to soothe her or bail her out. Diana can't handle someone with no ties or perceived responsibilities to her telling the truth without coddling her. Thank you, Angie, for your service to the state of California and the city of Los Angeles. After the service, Val is already seeing through Karen's alternately placid and icy narcotized facade. Mack sees it too but feels helpless - a man's man impotent in the face of an inner problem, at least for the moment. Eric and Mary Frances commiserate about their moms, and Eric is obviously wise to something being really wrong with his mother. We also get some confirmation Eric is still a high school senior as these two flirt and make out. They really are cute together. Abby and Laura have a great scene trading barbs about Sumner after he alerts Abby to Laura's suspicions re: the variance and Lotus Point, all of which apparently go against Gary's environmental interests. The women both threaten each other, but their threats amount to a scorched earth policy; if one goes down, the other does too. Abby, for her part, gives a shocking admission: She has gambled that even if Laura exposes her, Gary will simply forgive her again - "and if worse comes to worse, I have community property." My jaw dropped when I heard that line in the teaser, and it again makes me wonder if ultimately Gary Ewing was always about the chase for Abby. I really don't know at this point. But back in Garyland, there is a wonderful, insightful interlude where he tells Cathy a dark story about his Dallas childhood, and how he broke his back rodeo-riding on a dare from friends as a teenaged drunk. "Gary, people die from that!" Cathy exclaims. "Yeah, people do," he allows. "I didn't." That's Gary in a nutshell. The glimpses of his Dallas past still ring true and resonate deep at this point in KL history, always adding more layering to an already very shaded character - the moment where he admits Jock seemed 'almost proud' of him for nearly destroying himself seems all too Ewing. "We still don't," Gary admits when asked if they get along better these days. "He's dead." At which point Cathy takes him into her arms and kisses him. I think I'd kind of like to see these two have a real affair - Cathy is more worldly than Ciji. Mack's mole is ready to skip town over the omnipresent Wolfbridge, but Mack gets pulled away from it into a family klatch with Val and Eric over Karen and her pills. The genius of the show's long-standing suburban setup is that both family and friends are close enough, physically/proximity-wise and personally, that anyone can walk in, start these conversations and draw others into it; both Eric and Val worry over Karen, who of course wanders in and explodes opposite Mack when challenged. Seeing Michele Lee so fragile and pathetic in this storyline is consistently disturbing, but her worst moment for herself is clearly the final shot - startled to get a glimpse of herself in the mirror, knowing what she is. As for next time: Did they really have to spoil two big twists in the teaser? Come on, Knots!

I do think Dobbs has made a big difference, and the media has not wanted to acknowledge that or has tried to downplay it as much as possible. There are a handful of articles and some TV punditry indicating it has changed the dynamic of the midterms, but a lot of them still need to believe in a GOP wave for the sake of excitement and keeping the more outspoken libs in their place.

I had no idea Lesley was dating a random Italian dude they brought her in with in the winter and they're still together offscreen. When Nikolas started going on about "Marcello" I had no clue what he was on about and had to google. Good for ol' Lesley I guess.

I don't have a problem with Ava having killed Connie. I do have a problem with the show trying to remake her into a sappy heroine off and on over the years since. That's not who she is. She is a killer, she is not Carly Snyder.

I don't think it's really going to hurt it tbh - those films are big for Blumhouse and it did well in theaters last time for Kills. There's a mild uproar of 'oh, how can they do this to the theatres again??' but Halloween Kills did major box office. This is most likely being done simply to try to shore up Peacock, like the sudden DAYS move. Halloween sells, Peacock doesn't.

Right - I could've sworn I remembered this very pointed interview, but I wasn't 100% sure.

I know she came close to going to AMC. I had heard something about someone (I don't recall who) intervening there before she could, but I may be wrong about that. I know Marcy Walker was allegedly very concerned about it after her GL stint went south, something she supposedly blamed Jill for.

I have a feeling she either thought it was too soon after the DID saga or that she didn't want Dorian and Viki fighting over a man.

It seems that from Labine's own mouth above Erika shut down that angle.

I always loved Florencia Lozano. Tea I went back and forth from loving and hating many times over the years, because the writing was often not as honest about the character as the performer always was. By the end she and Blair were very well matched and I'd have her back any time. I blame JFP and her people for the conclusion of the Canton/Cramer storyline, but I may be wrong.

Chelsea and Chloe are not just redundant of each other, they have not a purpose on this show in maybe 10 years.

This is how virtually all 'good' adults are written on the remaining network soaps now - if they're 'good' people they can't fùck around, have affairs, or approach each other like adults. It has to be cutesy teenage shít. Or when they become rootable or get audience investment they are defanged, like GH pretending Nik and Ava did not hook up when he was running from the police for getting a woman shot in the head and she didn't leave Connie to bleed out.

Oh, Angel Square was everywhere lol. I loved those characters, but I imagine a lot of it is cringey or OTT now. I adored Antonio and Andy. Others did not, and a lot of their story is definitely silly today. We can't say the show wasn't ahead of its time in terms of Latin representation though. It was practically an entire second canvas of characters, contract and recurring, and a lot of them lasted into '97 or possibly beyond (I don't know when Javier or Linda Soto vanished).