Vee

He was always right about this:

They clearly need him, not vice versa.

RTD, like all modern DW showrunners before him (even Chibnall, somehow), was a devoted student of the classic Who era and knows its ups and downs backwards and forwards, having lived as part of the new critical generation that sprung up in the wilderness years of the '80s/'90s and took over the New Adventures Sylvester McCoy novel brand in those years. I'm sure he knows what a major shift this is given Who history of not retaining a prior showrunner, and I suspect he will be very determined to prove to everyone he is not going to be making the kind of show he made in the 2000s. I wouldn't be surprised to see as jarring a stylistic shift as JNT taking over in Series 18 with The Leisure Hive, or what Moffat himself did when he basically reinvented his show for Capaldi (and I felt did it very well). I also think Davies is frankly a better writer than he used to be. I think he got very lazy and cheap near the end with Who and too in need of fan adoration for bringing back all the faves (Donna, etc.) one more time. But his recent work, what little I've seen of it, feels more mature. I think some things have stayed strong and others have aged horribly, and I suspect he knows a lot of that. So we'll see how it goes. This being DW, there are already baseless nonsense rumors of the RTD 'favorite' for the Doctor, the latest being Lydia West who he worked with on his recent shows, so here goes: I would prefer the brilliant T'Nia Miller, who did his show Years and Years and was also heartbreaking on The Haunting of Bly Manor for Netflix, but she's already played a Time Lord in the Capaldi era so I won't bet on her. I've never seen West. He is apparently taking over the entire production and bringing in his crew, supplanting the BBC Studios producers.

Will grinning Brian Stelter report on this one this time?

You should finish Capaldi's! I will have to struggle to finish the Whittaker/Chibnall era, tbh. I've only gotten up to a couple episodes of the last series. The companions all have about the depth of Sesame Street adults to me (I think Ryan's only character 'trait' is 'has dyspraxia'). I don't think there's any denying RTD's work has always been a mix of good, bad, great and awful, but he can never be accused of being a Chibnall. I do also think the times have evolved and I suspect he has as well. I welcome anyone who can right the ship with the show, though I fear it will be regressive for DW going forward to go back to a prior showrunner. I do wonder if this will lead to the mooted Ace spinoff for kids he'd wanted to happen, years ago when SJA was running. Meanwhile: On a side note, I am glad Olly Alexander has broken out in music and TV - I first remember seeing him as the camp British kid in Gaspar Noe's terrible Enter the Void, who ends that dreadful narrative on his knees giving head to Japanese businessmen. Oof.

@DRW50 Not entirely surprised tbh. The show is clearly in crisis and they want to right the ship. I'm not sure there is a precedent for this, though JNT did stay long bc no one else wanted the job, and IIRC they once considered bringing Patrick Troughton and his showrunner back. I felt aspects of Davies' era (particularly the visual aesthetics) had dated poorly remarkably soon after he left, but much of those were also simply a product of their times. I don't think it can be denied that he massively revitalized Who, made it an international name and set the standard for years to come as a devoted fan, though I preferred the Moffat era overall quality-wise - I revisit many of the RTD stories fairly often, even while I never could stand others. His recent show about the AIDS epidemic got good reviews and I've been meaning to watch it. He's a complex and complicated figure, but he could never be a Chris Chibnall. And I'll never forget what he did for people like Lis Sladen. In a number of ways this is retrograde and regressive for Who, but frankly in these uncertain economic times and coming off Chibnall I can't fault them for going back to a strong hand. I just hope he doesn't get too cute.

IIRC, Janice Lynde and the varying characters surrounding her (the Chapins/Coronals, etc.) were not brought in by Rauch. Rauch helped wipe them out, I believe.

Just report and move on, y'all. It ain't like the bandwidth can get any tighter around here!

I never knew that - I assumed Rauch toasted her.

Weakest burner account yet tbh

This has been Days for years. And most other soaps on network television have gone the same way. Don't hold your breath expecting some new renaissance of quality, because until these soaps move to streaming if they ever do there's no chance IMO.

Well, Max did for awhile lol. People are forgetting Mckenna Grace, who may be a bigger star than all of them atm in major genre films and is about to star in Ghostbusters.

I think someday they'll be put up officially. Hopefully before the seas rise and many of us die.

I cannot tell you what I'd pay per month for streaming access to the P&G/CBS archives from the Marland era. Though I deeply appreciate the lovely and well-intentioned soap collectors and their heroic efforts archiving home video cassettes from a bygone age, it's sad that we have to rely on watching scattershot batches of episodes where the ravages of time and antiquated hardware make everyone in Oakdale look like they have just eaten a pound of poison oatmeal, contracted dysentery and will soon die in a storm of static.

Not Locher asking about Marie Wallace's first day on the set in 1968!

He had a number of other romances, but the investment wasn't there for long and I don't think anyone really compares to Judith Light. I had long ago (in the 2000s, anyway) wanted OLTL to do a special episode in tribute of Michael Storm - "24 Hours with Dr. Larry Wolek". You'd follow ol' Larry throughout his day at the hospital, checking out kids' sore throats and what not, since he knows and is trusted by virtually all the families in Llanview, and Viki and others would visit him and give us insight into how important he's always been to the town and these people even on the sidelines. And then you'd see him sleeping in the break room or at his quiet little house with just a picture of Meredith or Karen, or both, leading a somewhat lonely if not unfulfilled life. But the end of the episode, the following day would have a surprise visit, from Doris Belack as Anna (Belack was alive and still quite active at the time), foisting Larry's teenage grandson off on him (Larry and Dan would've been estranged since the Brenda McGillis years) to be part of the teen scene, and that would open a new chapter for the Woleks on the show. Maybe with a visit from Karen at the end of the ep, too, but who knows. Anyway: Dream of dreams.

I think Larry and Karen were one of those stories where they became 'the couple' and true love down the line - once all manner of sin and drama and fury had gone down and they had come out different people. Alan and Monica were the same way on GH. But ultimately Larry was clearly never enough for Karen, though I think they were deeply in love in later years. That it never got to be revisited is a shame, IMO.

I watched Sweetback a lot in college. RIP

They really have been going all out and going strong in impossible times. I have a season-plus to catch up on, lol. Jayden Rey has gotten so big! She's beautiful. The interactive element sounds very risky.

The last time I remember any real investment in Phillip or Chloe was in the Sheffer run, when he talked up making the character dark and wounded again with JKJ finally back, dealing with his war injury and mixing things up with Belle, a newly vixen-ish Chloe, Shawn, etc. That lasted about 8 minutes before everyone involved BTS was fired and it went sideways, and ever since then Phillip, Chloe, Shawn and Belle have all been welfare characters rotating in and out of employment by the show nonstop with storylines and romances that never go anywhere. I couldn't tell you a single thing any of them have done in the last 10+ years or more, except that poor Chloe was demeaned over and over and over and yet keeps being fired then rehired. Like sands through the hourglass, so is Nadia Bjorlin's dressing room. And JKJ lost all luster long ago. He looks like a wax dummy.

Since it keeps being quoted for me to see, I'm just bewildered someone has apparently been raging about me all this time on a forum I haven't even been to in years lol. I haven't been touched by tragedy like that since BJ's heart! Talk about pissing in the wind.

I also keep forgetting they foisted JPL on people.

I guess I should try to watch yesterday's and today's to get a sense of the current plotlines lol. And Ron does not write edgy men unless they're killers, quasi-rapists or other villains snarking on the rest of the normie characters. That's been his style for a long time, it's not new. The women are the focus along with the outsize villains/eccentrics or antiheroes. This is the same way it went at GH (and to a lesser extent, OLTL) when layered male leads lost all definition and became dupes. All other men are reduced to hapless, oft-naked hunks on par with Austin's worst years.

Welcome to the last 15+ years.

Same old trolls.