Vee

Michael should've been gone til at least November sweeps (if not longer). Let Willow and Drew's nonsense and schemes with/against? each other take on more of its own life on canvas. Rory Gibson seems lethargic, but maybe he'll surprise me. I def would not have picked Adamson, I would've gone entirely outside daytime.

I've always had faith in Mazza so I'm glad that was a bit rewarded. I think he could've been slightly less loud and I did think the whole bit with smashing the violin was a bit much. While Lulu being both brash and a busybody is 100% in character, I have suspected for some time that making her the well-intentioned but obnoxious heavy opposite Setton/BLQ is not a coincidence on FV's part. Nonetheless, Alexa is great.

From a sadly strongly paywalled story at Breaker Media:

Oh lord.

Several legends here. Like @DRW50 I grew up knowing Joe Don Baker first and best from Mitchell (and his other infamous MST3K appearance, the equally hilarious Season 10 episode Final Justice - there were funny rumors he wanted to beat up the MST gang after Mitchell, while others claimed he actually took it all in good fun). I only learned later what a great actor and personality he truly was in things like Cape Fear, The Living Daylights and the original, strange and mystical BBC miniseries Edge of Darkness, where he played a CIA operative laughing in the face of nuclear annihilation. There's nobody like him. Same goes for George Wendt. Norm speaks for himself, as does Cheers. He'll never be forgotten as long as there's still television.

Nina I can see it as the head of a fashion mag and local heiress, but Drew? No.

Why is a sitting Congressman running the red carpet at the Nurses Ball?

Oh, let's click the blocked message for a moment and see what you have to say here. What are you right about re: Beyond the Gates? Be explicit with everyone here on the forum about what you mean. Is it guaranteed trash, like you said months before it first aired? Simple yes or no question. And if so, why other than 'I am not writing it'?

Vanguard spent the year before the show aired declaring that BTG was anti-Black 'guaranteed trash' for not using his fanfiction ideas. (Ask him about it, he won't admit it though it's in his posting history across his multiple accounts of the same name.) He now spends most of his posts spamming old clips pleading for them to hire people from bad Tyler Perry soaps. There is a lot to fix about BTG IMO, but there is also better, more valid and serious critical discussion to be had with other posters who are actually not furious that the show is renewed til at least the fall of next year.

Dan being de facto HW explains a lot. It's clear the show changed direction on a dime according to his interests or whims.

No.

@DRW50 I hope the IG post will show up - it's RTD paying tribute to Kate O'Mara. Click through as needed.

Did the Party of Five reboot even actually air?

I'm not surprised! CBS will never let Shemar go and he's very canny on how he stays employed.

Kelli Giddish (Di Henry, AMC) has been reinstated as a regular in her popular role on Law & Order: SVU after a few seasons off.

Agreed.

She would be great, but I of course am thinking of her in What's Love Got to Do with It.

Some spoilery press photos:

For those who care (like @DRW50) and want to be spoiled: I guess I have to reluctantly rewatch

Oh yes, I still remember that. But I'm much kinder to David Henesy than you are overall.

I think the pre-Barnabas episodes are very underrated both for dialogue and character. They're slow but they really create a world and fill out the characters, imbuing them with heavy dimension that ultimately will have to sustain them for years as the show largely stops writing for character after it returns from 1795. What we know about them by then is what they have to power them. (I don't think the show was bad after, I actually love it in '68 and often in times after that, but it was very different.) I think the B&W episodes with Barnabas' early days are especially frightening - they terrified me as a kid - but the color stuff in '67 is also very strong, especially in the stretch where Julia is on the run, Carolyn is under Barnabas' control, and you get the sense that events have gone off the rails for the regular characters and anything goes. As a child viewer seeing it in syndication on the Sci-Fi Channel, who had no idea who lived or who died, it was a lot. Mitch Ryan is especially powerful in the early pre-Barnabas era as the sort of Byronic Burke Devlin character. You knew they had to kill him once Barnabas comes in, despite Ryan's alcohol problem making it impossible to keep him at the show - Burke dominates the first year or so as the fulcrum character, he's incredibly magnetic and charismatic. You couldn't see him becoming a dupe for Barnabas and Julia, as Anthony George's more benign, mild version briefly does before getting unceremoniously killed off. I always found Burke's offscreen plane crash death very eerie and suspicious, and I think the show does toy with the question if Barnabas' powers somehow got him on that plane and if he took it down. I had always wanted Burke to return one day, in any revival project, as a kind of vengeful power broker and puppet master, driven by Vicki's inevitable demise to get revenge on Barnabas and co. I still have Art Wallace's "Shadows on the Wall" DS bible somewhere. IIRC in the earliest versions of the plot Vicki was going to somehow be tied to the butler or his daughter - Betty Hanscomb or something. I don't remember the exact details. I do know there's all sorts of raised and dropped plotlines and characters offscreen in '66, like Ned Calder, the man they clearly intended to pair with Liz and so on. I've always found '66 very rich, but I don't begrudge the show after for it because it's still awfully well-written, specifically the early Barnabas stuff.

I'm just pleased the homeless plotline has a point. I'm surprised they're going here this soon with the kids.

If I'm being 💯 about it I think Jan is a fine supporting part for a solid daytime vet (probably someone from the P&G soaps), as opposed to someone from the production location who is clearly cheaper. Which seems to govern some casting. I get the rationale, but I would start going through the ATWT/GL, etc. rolodex myself.

tbqh I don't care about Jan, I don't care about Ashley and I think Jon Lindstrom as Joey is an acquired taste. Jon is a great actor but certain things are in his zone and then some are not. Some days I find Joey credible and compelling, but the stuff with him hanging around the Golden Corral, grumbling about Doug and bitching at Randy is not amazing. If he had material on par with what MVJ wrote for Ryan/Kevin on GH back in the day it'd be a different story. I do think he has real chemistry with Vanessa, which is in large part due to MVJ clearly molding that character (and hiring an appropriate actor) in the Lucy Coe vein when she reinvented Lucy in the '90s as well. But I am not here to spend 6+ months watching Jon glower a lot (which is what he's doing half the time to carry weak story) and make more vague dire pronouncements while Jen Jacob gets flustered and weepy over "Daddy" or whatever would come of that storyline. Putting them together sounds like a recipe for doom to me. But I may be in the minority on that.

Lucky Day is an awfully good Doctor-lite episode focused on Millie Gibson and Jemma Redgrave - I am glad the show brought in Varada Sethu who continues to give major Caroline John/Liz Shaw vibes, but Millie was always very good in what felt designed to be a single arc companion and she's very good here too. She deserves a bit more somewhere in the franchise. The depressingly relevant storyline aside, I was most impressed by the showcase for UNIT and Kate Stewart. Jemma is always good but she was amazing here, noting the Doctor would've stopped her from going all the way re: Think Tank if he were there. Yet it's the kind of brute force her father could and did resort to in extreme situations back in the day. I almost hoped she would allow Conrad to be killed right then and there, which is something I think the Brigadier also would've done when backed against a wall over operational control and the safety of the Earth. She came very close, and the steel Redgrave exhibited (as always) was amazing. Whatever spinoffs can still materialize given the current streaming climate and DW's uncertain future (I do think it will continue somewhere, but I would not be shocked if it's back to a run of holiday specials for awhile a la Tennant's and Whittaker's), aside from the upcoming odd Sea Devils miniseries that's in the can, I still hope UNIT and Kate can get a proper one sometime.