Vee

Warnock is quite literally doing God's work, cozying up to Manchin to push voting rights.

She did all those things at the behest of Brian Frons. The masculine focus on men like Zach was all part of the Frons mandate, who would never have become that prominent or all-consuming without him. Where a HW was simpatico with Frons (as Megan McTavish at times was), that's all that was needed. JHC was a yeswoman. And Pratt, who Frons enthusiastically hired at GH, helped destroy AMC.

No, the EPs were all powerless figureheads for Brian Frons after he took over in 2002 across the entire network. That's why Gary Tomlin was fired, among other people at various levels. He micromanaged the shows' storylines and couples directly (besides GH, where Guza was given considerable control while JFP was stripped of most of hers after '01) to the HWs, and he did keep a hand in at GH. Ryan/Greenlee was his mandate, as was the focus on the macho leads across the line. Michael Easton, etc. EPs under Frons were there to facilitate his vision for these shows. At OLTL and AMC, what little they got away with of their own was in spite of his whims. Rebecca Budig also quit AMC because of the Ryan/Greenlee push which she was disinterested in, and only came back because she was promised she would be paired with Vincent Irizarry (for about five minutes).

I don't think Brian Frons ever loved soaps, and you have the words of every lifer on daytime who's gone on the record about this since their soaps passed, including Susan Lucci and Erika Slezak. I think at most he loved his idea of what he could mold soaps into. And if they wouldn't be what he wanted them to be they'd be destroyed. Even at its peak I would never credit DC for raising the ratings. Back then, a decade ago, soap social media was even less significant than it is now. They were a popular voice in a very small subset of obscure discussion forums like this one but they could not move the ratings. That's not me dogging DC, that's a reality. I wouldn't say Soapcentral or Daytime Royalty or whatever else could move it either. DC has never had the larger cultural footprint of a popular cultural podcast/site capable of that in the outside world.

I don't believe ABC was ever fully committed to saving AMC at that point, JMHO. She did a fine job, sure, but I think Broderick was the swan song gesture the network gave the show and fans to give it a decent exit, whereas ABCD had always gone out of its way not to re-hire LB permanently despite her being Agnes' heir apparent for years. They wanted control to mold the show into what they wanted it to be, and Broderick and people like her did not fit into that equation long-term. But when the show was done, they could afford to be magnanimous. That's how it certainly read to me at the time, anyway. That being said, the story I always heard about the cancellations was that AMC was def doomed, and that OLTL had to go with it bc of branding considerations despite outperforming both it and GH; OLTL was always the redhead stepchild, and the optics internally of cancelling only AMC and leaving OLTL were seen as unacceptable. Supposedly ABC/Disney also wanted to can GH at the same time, but Frons begged for its life because he worshipped Guza's GH as the flagship. Of course Guza went out with that reprieve, too.

At this point I'm up for anything that works.

The uber-'90s VR interludes return once more during the Murders, where Clay has a dysfunctional Leave it to Beaver-esque VR fantasy world/program with him, Gwyn and the two kids as children in an ideal family tableau. Little Curtis and Trisha make darkly comic nods to their grim adult fates (Trisha talks about how she's always wanting to go to Rome). I'm pretty sure Curtis was played by a very young and uncredited Joseph Cross. Truly weird, wild stuff and definitely of its time but I loved it.

Your life experience as the attempted living embodiment of a Dynasty supercut video on YT longing for the Reagan '80s is, to say the least, not universal.

Very sad.

Oh, that's awful. I remember when that happened on OLTL.

Lord! I mean, I don't care or know anything about Brando or Sasha, but still.

You already did.

If this is you doing a bit it is going to fly over the intended people's heads; both sets of them.

That Powerpoint [!@#$%^&*] has been disgraceful for a decade at least.

This show has been playing it Peppy & Cheap, in the words of Soapdish, since JFP came in, and that desperate drive for an Fronsian ABCD aesthetic, narrative focus and budgetary overhead has driven everything ever since.

It continues to get worse for Politico, as Sam Stein has protected his tweets following a meltdown over widespread slamming of Politico's latest hot frontpage story: Kamala Harris' reluctance to use Bluetooth citing a security risk.

Possible, except you have the hilarious OLTL oral history stories where Gottlieb, etc. say they went to Agnes and got her blessing on both the gang rape and DID stories and Agnes flat-out is quoted next saying "What? I never met Linda Gottlieb."

And I'm happy with Uncle Mac! I don't come to this thread for slander against the star of Werewolf!

Lots of people have said a lot of things about Agnes Nixon giving them their blessing when it isn't necessarily true. I feel fairly certain that Agnes' viewpoint on Megan at the start of her headlining career at AMC was quite different than the later years. Megan and Jill were inseparable at OLTL and GH and thick as thieves. Megan was dumped by the network and Frons when Jill and Megan's creative regime tanked; Jill was left employed in the EP slot but was beholden to Guza and Frons from then on. I am amused if Megan blamed Jill for letting her be thrown over.

Dana Milbank, far from a liberal bastion in the past but rather a revered Beltway media vanguard, has come out with an editorial accurately shredding the media for attacking Biden even harder than Trump out of a mindless desperation for neutrality in the face of fascism. This has created a considerable shockwave inside the DC ecosphere, with typical shills like Brian Stelter all but adopting Milbank's viewpoint on CNN and making it a serious topic (which is a good thing, even if I detest Stelter and most of CNN), whereas the Politico gang predictably throws tantrums about it (and gets ratioed): Meanwhile:

Yeah, I love Kristina and I'm happy for her, but Lynn Herring is 100% the only one of those recurring vets who needs a contract atm.

I will never forget realizing it was grown-up Christopher Gerse who turned up on Westworld as a pervy lab tech molesting the male robots. He was killed while jerking off in his scrubs over naked Rodrigo Santoro!

It's doable anytime, and they should at some point. Mac has quite a checkered past. I would like to see Mac and Felicia running some investigations again. They don't need to have a frontburner A-story but their agency can be a backdrop for a number of other more prominent people, like Sam's(?) thing that went nowhere.

Yeah, you would. They never dug much into those years or Mac after the disastrous twin/doppleganger story in the late '90s. I still don't understand what that was about.