Vee

The AMC 2.0 reboot was almost flawless IMO. Just incredible. Best soap of that year. OLTL had a few fits and starts in the middle weeks, but was on a whole much more serious, cutting-edge and forward-thinking than OLTL had been in years. It felt adult and dangerous again. Tonally they were appropriate opposites but both shows were the wave of the future, IMO. It kills me because I think you could put them on Netflix or Hulu today and they'd work - if the management company hadn't been incompetent. The productions worked.

Todd left Port Charles because he got a call from Danielle who was drunk and/or upset and spiraling into a drug habit. Starr left Port Charles after getting an urgent call from Langston about some personal matter, then broke up with Michael over the phone (unseen and unheard) from the Nurses Ball with no explanation. She was later said to be living in L.A. again on OLTL. John left Port Charles on assignment for the FBI and later was in contact with Natalie and Téa (offscreen) disputing the custody arrangement for Liam, which Clint had changed behind Natalie's back. None were ever seen or mentioned on GH again. RH did double duty on OLTL 2.0 and GH, but I don't think the actual filming stints coincided. I think he filmed all his material for OLTL 2.0 in one block before returning to film at GH as Franco. The shows aired simultaneously, so he aired on both at the same time. He was expected back at OLTL 2.0 but the show did not continue, and Todd was not seen again after exiting shortly before the end of the first 'season'. It was implied Todd was walking into a trap the Triskelion cartel (the 'tattoo organization') led by Carl Peterson (Ron Raines) had set for him. Peterson said that his sister Alison (Perkins) had already re-captured Victor.

Wow - Donnell Turner (Curtis on GH) is quoted in the above piece.

Again, dude was stupid. It was obvious Tate was the OPP MVP! At the time I thought the story was laughable - the acronym (every last lady!), the plotline, the idea that a major celebrity athlete would be a closet white supremacist terrorist. Today, with the rise of the alt right and many pro athletes and TV stars being unmasked as sympathizing with that fringe on social media, it's actually unnervingly plausible. But the One Pure People storyline was very poorly done - and could use a do-over.

I agree. Because as it stands now there is more vile dirt on Kavanaugh coming out by the hour - it's endless, I'm kind of shocked. Easier to use him as a martyr to the right wing base than to try and confirm him. IMO if they still don't have the votes after his enraged Trumpian showstopper on Thursday, they'll never get them.

I think all the stuff from Bourbon Street, etc. is just intrinsic to Malone. He was doing past life Greek/pirate fantasy flight of fancy with Tina, Cord and Luna as early as October 1991, followed by ghost Megan's midsummer night's dream the next spring. (And I don't mind Malone's whimsy and fantasy in moderation, even in some excess, but there was the '90s stuff and then there was 2003-2004.) And yes, anything was better than Higley. But woo boy, what an unforgettable mess! I'd actually still have welcomed Malone as a consultant at a new OLTL - just a consultant. He can't be allowed to be a HW without massive smart oversight and a strong team in place. IIRC a Killing Club tie-in was mandated from the start when ABC commissioned the book, but Malone was gone by the time it kicked off. Higley got the job based on her one sentence pitch to Frons: "Jessica has DID". Beyond that she never wrote long story or bibles, which drove Frank Valentini nuts. She was apparently a nightmare to work with everywhere she's ever been.

They still don't have the votes. Jinx!

Welp:

Meanwhile:

I will say this: The trailer is great, and Adam McKay's The Big Short was exceptional, smart, angry work in this vein. So okay, I'll go.

I just have no interest in reliving that era when things are even worse now - nor do I have any morbid interest in how Christian Bale has once again mutated his body to do it.

After 25+ years - the video game:

The People story in question.

No.

LMAO! This I didn't know. I thought Adriana was a deliberate cover. It was obvious it was going to be Tate though, so Chris Beetem was foolish.

To be clear, as for the killers, I'm sighing at the show - they had Haver, the KCK and Colson all over the course of a year-plus, and the last two ran almost simultaneously. Awful.

The OPP (yeah you know me! I could never take them using the acronym onscreen seriously, and they did it constantly) was 2007. I guess it's actually pretty timely now, but was very poorly written.

No, Stephen Haver was a year earlier (sigh) - the Music Box Killer in 2003-04 under Malone. Literary agent Hayes Barber was the Killing Club culprit; he was actually Marcie's demented former classmate Ivan Potter. Naturally, Daniel Colson's slew of murders had been running at the same time as this story because why not have two murder sprees at once, right? I always liked Viki shutting down Marcie - it was one of the few shining Viki moments from 2003 to 2007, a dark, lonely time for the character.

Probably? I dunno. It was in early July '05, I believe. ETA: Yep! (not embeddable)

And the irony is all that only came about because he took off with the audience despite being a bit player for Flash's band originally. He was used to give her something to do before she exited because fans preferred him to her and Joey (her cousin!), then clicked with Jessica Morris. He was still wasted on her extremely minimal talents - I always liked him and regretted his exit, as he'd become like a son to Nora and a brother to Matthew. No - Flash was gone by then. The Love Crew debacle was summer 2004: Marcie, Jen, Riley, Julie Tanaka, jock Nick Messina, Shannon McBain (who I'd forgotten existed until just now and who was played by Mrs. Jensen Ackles, Danneel Harris!), and yes, Matt Cavenaugh as token gay non-core character Mark Solomon. Rex and Adriana also orbited it. The Love Crew mess was so bad: Retrofitted youths thrown together overnight, most of them new, all of them struggling in this incredibly earnest, embarrassing ploy for teen viewers. There was even a bizarre ghost story/past lovers angle with Lord and McBain ancestors thrown in that Malone mercifully was forced to ditch before it went anywhere, and which was rewritten as R.J.(!!) faking a haunting so he could claim the land. But somehow Higley's story the following year was worse - the Killing Club murders, based on Malone's lame IRL book(!!), in which Marcie whined and howled her way through a storyline featuring all her Love Crew pals being brutally murdered until finally the show realized fans were pissed enough at Marcie that they actually trotted Viki out to sit her down and say (and I quote) "please stop it" and told her it was her fault. God, those were some rough years.

They gave Flash a lot of scenes with Asa because her initial intro storyline as a runaway was a complete botch - lusting for her cousin because Brian Frons micromanaged the storyline with Joey, Jen and Flash and wanted it frontburnered and over-promoted when none of them were capable. The show pushed very hard to retrofit Jessica Morris' Jen into Marty Saybrooke, which was insulting, and Bruce Michael Hall's Joey was good at some things and terrible at others - he couldn't carry a major story on his own, certainly not with weak regular partners. Afterwards, they thought tying Flash/Sarah more closely to the Buchanans and Asa would help. It did, but they didn't give her any other stories beyond a backburner romance with recurring player Riley, who became increasingly popular and stuck around without her (I think Jay Wilkison went on to do Broadway). I liked Shanelle Workman at the time, but today her weaknesses are extremely apparent and the whole Hot Topic goth thing is now super-dated. It was clear at the time they intended to bring on her brother C.J. (long rumored to be OLTL's mythical gay unicorn) and bring back Tina, who they were actively trying to recast, but none of it manifested onscreen.

Listen, I won't hear slander of UB40. I loved them when I was 11!

Tremble with fear, perpetrators - the FBI have found the infamous "Squi":