Vee

Sidney Poitier! What a legend. One after another. I first became aware of him in Sneakers, of all things, but his performance in Raisin in the Sun is one of the most electrifying things I've ever seen.

And dead Sonny for most of 2021. It's ridiculous.

Was I? I don't remember. I know @DRW50saw it recently and enjoyed it. Bogdanovich's career as a critic, rediscovering classic Hollywood filmmakers and actors and re-conceptualizing them, often in the brilliant and extensive series of interview books he did with both stars and filmmakers, did so much for the backbone of modern criticism as we know it today. And that's before we even get to his own amazing career as a director. The Last Picture Show is a masterpiece; What's Up Doc? is one of the greatest screwball comedies of all time. At Long Last Love, reviled upon release, is IMO a demented piece of musical genius. The director's cut of Texasville is a languid, witty and very human portrait of a rich characters' world. Film geeks love to jab at Bogdanovich for his ego and inflated sense of self-importance, but I don't think they've ever (at least in my lifetime) forgotten his true value as a historian, an interviewer, a critic and yes, a director. If people have never read his interview books I hope they'll seek them out. The work he left us in print and onscreen is immeasurable; his wealth of memory and personal experience and stories, starting with his long and complex friendship with Orson Welles and going down the line, is eternal. And here: https://www.vulture.com/2022/01/peter-bogdanovich-in-conversation.html

Oh goddamnit.

I still can't believe they put that on the air. But I can't believe they put most of the show from about 1997 to 2006-2007 or so on the air.

My God! Same here. Unbelievable. Meanwhile, this is hard to read.

I blame brand loyalty and Reilly hangover for DAYS staying afloat in those years, much like I blame brand loyalty and COVID for Y&R's continued relative stability today.

I'll never forget that sudden SORAS. It was so random and it felt so rushed, and then they were pushing Kirsten and Jason Cook immediately. It was a mistake and it proved out years later when Reilly had burnt them out at a very young age. Now they come off too old and as pointless also-rans to countless other characters.

If the Cassadines killed Luke for real, Laura and Lucky alone and probably Scorpio too would not rest until they'd wiped the ones responsible out. There's a lack of stakes and urgency on this show and it started (in its latest iteration, anyway) with nobody lifting a finger when Billy Joel a.k.a. Valentin came back to town free and clear after 'killing' Nikolas.

Yeah, the 'penthouse' is a damn sight closer to the original than the redecorated, reversed and too small Q drawing room IMO. I def do not believe Luke is dead.

Every opening since what, 2011? Has looked like PowerPoint.

It is scummy as hell of Tracy to not tell Laura, assuming she knows Luke isn't dead (which she may not!). I thought they'd gotten beyond that with each other.

Christie Clark has always been a solid part of the firmament. We've talked about her here a lot over the years. To this day it's a mistake that she is not back more often or on contract IMO as a steadying presence; her unexpected return in 2012(?) proved it could work. Carrie is far more interesting - and comes off more youthful and vibrant - than Belle who is supposed to be almost twenty years younger than her yet has the same profession. Belle could go away forever and I wouldn't blink.

They're never going to recast Sami. And it's clear they can work with Sweeney's schedule, they just choose (as Ron so often does) to feature her in central stories and then leave the stories hanging. That's a choice the show is making with Sami, just as Ron has done with so many key characters over the years. AS's availability is considerably more than some other actors in her position over the years, IMO. It's how the show and the writers handle it that is falling down on the job.

I didn't see this posted. @DRW50

The AS thing is classic Ron, though. Not that her not being on contract is his fault, but he and Frank Valentini made a school at OLTL and GH of stalling and staggering long storylines with key characters played by actors who were simply not there. They'd send them in and out of town regularly and keep the plot percolating in the background perpetually with any numbers of excuses or twists. Sometimes it worked and I applauded their ingenuity (most of Tuc Watkins' later years on OLTL), often it didn't. The most famous example, of course, is the Robin story on GH in the 2010s, where they wisely reversed course on plans to kill her off for good and kept getting Kimberly McCullough back. At first I felt it worked, but by the second time she was abducted and then they finally recovered her, what, two years later, at the end of 2015? That showed the limits of running that game. Thing is, Ron does it all the time now at DAYS even without Frank. It's how those two learned to manage budget - Ciara, Sarah, Sami, Jenn. I get it, but it frequently fails today. Some people blamed Kimberly at GH too, and there are few soap lifers more committed and loyal to these shows than Kimberly McCullough and Ali Sweeney IMO. I don't blame Ali. Despite being the queen of Hallmark she's made herself heavily available, just as Kimberly did. (Including, allegedly, at times they could've had McCullough back in the long intervals and didn't bc they were doing other [!@#$%^&*].) I blame the way Ron plots - skipping beats and thinking he can out-think the taping schedule and string stories out forever. He learned this long ago and I think he's decided he's a master at it.

I didn't buy Kelly and Dylan together again when he came back. They'd put too much into Brandon and Kelly and into the many, many mentions of Brenda and Dylan being back together offscreen over the ensuing years. That whole period for 90210 was very bizarre, even by the standards of their later years. Brandon abruptly leaves 4-5 episodes into Season 9, and Val abruptly leaves a week later as Dylan returns and Vanessa Marcil arrives all in the same episode. I'd love to know wtf was going on there, but the dishy tell-all interviews with some of the personnel at the show that have surfaced in recent years don't seem to discuss that stuff.

I never thought either MW or GG were very good, frankly.

I thought either Aaron or Fox didn't want it because she was already a big 'serious' star on Ally and they felt it was brand contamination. I may be wrong. I don't think the mention of Alison on the reboot was personal to Courtney (who I love) because tbh they gave virtually every old character who appeared a dark, cynical fate - all of them turned out to have grown into purely careerist vipers out for themselves, all of them had some angle they were trying to play against the new cast because their own fortunes had gone south. Which I suppose is true to Melrose's characters and to L.A. to a point, but it's not what I wanted to see for Jane, Jo, etc. years later. I may have misphrased it, it's been so long. IIRC, Amanda was receiving either phone calls or faxes from Alison drunk and struggling in Atlanta. Sam overheard this and schemed to get revenge on Billy and Jennifer, and I believe she faked messages from Alison to Billy asking him to come be with her. She was found out, Billy and Jenn stayed together, etc. Alison's fate was never mentioned again. I always assumed it was personal from JER.

As I've said before, Chloe has had every demeaning story short of being abducted by aliens or joining the Klan. A recast ain't gonna fix it. Phillip and Chloe have been spent characters for years IMO who burnt through a ton of bad material by Higley and co., and I say that as someone who really liked Nadia for a long time. They need a long, long rest. Brady isn't far behind and I say that as someone who thinks Eric Martsolf is sexy as hell.

They were writing lines about Alison being a lonely drunk in Atlanta even during the final seasons of the original show, lol. I was sure they would have Billy leave to be with her, but instead they used Alison's drunken faxes from out of town as a plot point at the end of Season 6 to make Sam scheme against Billy and Jennifer. So Alison is just hanging out there, and Courtney didn't even get to cameo as a drunk barfly in the final episode like she wanted.

It can't be worse than the time Frank and Ron tried to bring back 'the brownstone' and it lasted about four weeks and looked like a kids TV playset.

This is Luke and Tracy we're talking about, so faking one or both of their deaths would just be another Monday for them. That is my first assumption, that it's part of some scheme. But if it's not and it's real, I can't imagine why they'd do it now. I have to see what they've done to Sonny's penthouse lol