Vee

On the "charming sidenote" front, Wilf is back. Sort of.

This is rather lovely. Bernard Cribbins, who of course you’ll recognise as Donna Noble’s grandad Wilf from Doctor Who, is starring in a new TV show called Old Jack’s Boat, on the BBC children’s channel CBeebies.

The show revolves around a fisherman, his pet Salty Dog, and the stories he tells, and also stars (among other people) fellow-Who graduate Freema Agyeman. Bernard is no stranger to children’s TV, having narrated and appeared in all sorts of children’s shows, from The Wombles (a ’70s animated smash hit, that actually got revived in the late ’90s), to The Railway Children.

But in his latest show, the one thing the production team are always on the lookout for are stories. And having been taken back into the Doctor Who family by Russell T Davies, Bernard knew just the fella to ask.

Speaking of his love of broadcasting to a young audience, Bernard said: “I keep coming back to children’s television and I love writing it. Obviously you can do stuff in children’s that you can’t do anywhere else. But it’s the audience actually. In fact it’s the best audience because they’re so uncritical and they’re so critical at the same time. It’s a very, very, sharp audience. If something is dull or boring or wrong, they’ll just wander off. They’ve got better things to do. And I think if you can get the magic going, create a good children’s show, they will literally remember it for the rest of their lives!

“It’s just one of those things where you can be as real as you like, as simple as you like and if the story is good (and certainly the stories that I’ve had to read on this show have been a smashing lot of stories) you just engage one child through the lens…”

And this wasn’t Russell’s first time creating stuff for a young audience either: “Many years ago I used to be a script editor on a programme that was for very young kids. It was a nice show – it was quite hard work because they sent me a list beforehand of how to write for under fives. There has to be no repetition, there must be no jeopardy. And I was like ‘well that’s my career gone’ I thought ‘that’s all I do is repeat myself, put people in danger… what am I left with?’ So I genuinely found it hard and then I loved it, having gone through it. I was really proud of it actually.”

Viki being molested is canon. That is the retcon, and it's the only thing that made sense. The original explanation was severely dated, pedestrian and ludicrous.

Retcons are a part of soap opera. This one is far from the enemy, and resulted in one of the most famous and celebrated stories in OLTL history which no one should ever try and undo or invalidate. Those are the facts and there's nothing that is ever going to change that.

I'm almost positive it was Amy Levitt in the Odyssey House story.

Catherine Burns, the first Cathy, had minor fame in a breakout role in Frank Perry's eerie teen mood piece/thriller Last Summer, which also had a very young Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas from The Waltons and Bruce Davison. Burns is really the focal character the film most revolves around and she got a Best Supporting Actress nom for it. She was incredible in the picture and you can see why OLTL cast her as another neurotic teen, Cathy Craig. It was a really courageous choice - she was definitely not the typical soap beauty. I've only seen a few grainy minutes of her as Cathy in the 1969 episode online.

Wikipedia claims Burns was only Cathy from January to August of 1969 at which time Last Summer was released, but obviously take that with a huge grain of salt.

I mean this sincerely in the nicest way: Please never stop making me look bad.

I think Tim may have been dead longer than Mark Toland.

Ron would have done it.

I can't wait for this book, actually. The stuff on the FB feed alone is riveting.

This is interesting.

Some interesting anecdotes, including Lee Warrick (Julie Siegel) claiming that she of all people was poised to potentially return to the show but backed off after 9/11. I can't imagine who would've wanted to bring Julie back, and for what - the character was gone by the mid-'70s.

She's done very well since Who frankly shortchanged her as part of its Rose hangover. (They made up for it the following year and with the Torchwood offer, but still) Lots of work here and there. I'm so glad, I always just loved her. I think she'll end up being an elegant beauty and working well into old age.

I have to assume this is about the budget again. AMC doesn't know how to run a cable hit or being a TV network. This is amateur hour. They don't have the budget or their experience amongst their executives to handle dealing with shows of this scope.

The only Beth I ever really knew was the beautiful but deeply damaged, neurotic, self-destructive woman who dated a slew of lunatics and always, always dumped the good guys for more freaks. They wrote her to be a real flake in the Rauch era when she was after Vanessa or whatever, haranguing her about being too old for Matt. I don't know who they thought that would appeal to. But she reminded me of some women I knew around my family - beautiful, well-heeled and utterly off-keel - it was a little too real. I've never had much sympathy for Beth, but the character is fascinating.

Matt Smith reiterated again in a recent interview that he is contracted through to 2014. This apparently includes, from what we've heard, at least part of Series 8 in the autumn of next year, the anniversary special, and the following Christmas special. Everyone is speculating as to whether he will go beyond that. We just don't know. He seems game.

In the comic book,

Rick eventually moves on to a romance with Andrea.

I don't know if they'll go there on the show. Also, Carl

gets half of one side of his face blown off, leaving him usually wearing a bandage - the latest issue has him remove it to reveal a gaping hole with his skull and eye socket exposed.

[!@#$%^&*] like that is why I eventually just walked away from the book. He's alive and kicking and tough, but who needs it?

Also, note Gerald Anthony as Marco Dane clashing with Lucy in Part 2. Like Todd today, I think he fits well here as an OLTL transplant. I wonder if Linda Gottlieb and Malone ever wanted him back for OLTL, but I half-doubt it. I wonder who came up with that idea to begin with.

It's interesting to note that it looks like Riche inherited Gloria Monty's massive foul-up with the Scorpios, rumored to be what cost Monty her job; she fired Finola Hughes unceremoniously at the end of one day, replaced her with a woman from one of the Friday the 13th sequels to finish out a month of story with Faison and Robert, and by the end of February '92 both Robert and Anna were apparently gone. At that point Wendy Riche had been on the job less than a month, and had to deal with that. Whoof.

Yes, according to Wikipedia she started in August '93, just before Luke and Laura hit. I myself only started watching right around then. Riche was around at least a year prior, first with Norma Monty then a couple others. This is...Bill Levinson?

I wonder if this was her or what. I know Wendy Riche did lobby to get Lucy back around this time. Lynn Herring spoke kindly of her time at DAYS in a podcast interview the other day (she sounds gleeful to be back) but I'd always heard she was miserable and her treatment there infuriated Wayne Northrop.

When exactly in '93 did Claire Labine take over?

Note the waterfront and bridge vista outside Kelly's. That's gone now. Too bad.

I think GH could do a minor zombie apocalypse episode for Halloween some year, set at the hospital. Why not? Say it's somebody's dream after too much Halloween candy. Or do a little subplot with some virus that makes people go 'rabid' instead. I don't care!

And yes, Ellen Wheeler's GL did seem to be produced post-zombie apocalypse. That's why they never went inside; Shane Ellen refused to leave camp.

I always found Lori to be such a shrew in the comics. But then I find most of Kirkman's characters to eventually default to histrionic shrew, male or female.

I've only watched Season 1, but I have to say Sarah Wayne Callies impresses me as a much more sympathetic and rounded version of the character.

And yes, the game is pretty much all-new people dealing with the zombie apocalypse elsewhere. There are some cameos early on, but they weave into Kirkman's continuity and exit.

The game is officially in continuity with the comics, apparently; Kirkman signed off on it. At times I find myself preferring to believe it is in continuity with the TV show. There was also a sticking point on one character, but that is a private discussion for another time.

The comic is just an endless train of adolescent hyperbole and misery and death. I can't get behind that. Nothing really changes in it to me, so I dropped it post-prison. I've tried to get into the latest arc on a friend's word, but Kirkman's dialogue style and approach to emotions is still like an 18-year-old juggalo so I'm not sure I can be bothered. His concept was wonderful, and was once a great story - the comic just bores me these days. Already the show seems like an improvement on his initial arc, though.

The Telltale game is for all systems, plus PC, I think Mac, and iOS. It's more of an adventure game - less about action, much more about choices, characters and interaction. And it does it very well. It was very, very rewarding for me. A few TWD characters crop up early on; it's supposed to run parallel with the beginning of Kirkman's story. It was released episodically in chapters, there are six of them. A second "season" will be released in 2013. It really is worth your time, and it was cheap for me, maybe $20-30 for the whole six episodes. A real value.

I'd recommend looking on Youtube for a playthrough of Episode 1 if you're interested.

I would've shot anyone in the back over Telltale Games' Walking Dead. Too soon?

Seriously though, that adventure game is the best TWD out there. I gave up on the comic after the prison, was never a big fan of Robert Kirkman's OTT, adolescent writing style. It's become so repetitious, and nihilist dull. The show I am just now starting to give a fair shake. Only in Season 1 as of yet.

A mere shred of the magic of the Santi saga of 2004, courtesy of Michael Malone, featuring Antonio at his most unbearable:

Amusingly, the clips are labeled "Carmen's Funeral". "Carmen" is the character Saundra Santiago played on Guiding Light - on OLTL, she played mysterious nanny Angelina Paredes, a.k.a the long-lost Isabella Santi, Antonio and Tico's biological mother. (Years later, Saundra took over the role of Carlotta Vega, after Patricia Mauceri fled the show in a fit of gay panic.) Given these dueling, endless Latin crime sagas, the confusion is understandable. Part 3 contains a flashback to her awkward, bizarre and just plain disturbing death scene. This episode also features GH's Lisa Lo Cicero as Sonia Toledo, male strip club owner and adopted Santi who fucked the daylights out of Antonio during this Tennessee Williams-by-way-of-kindergarten "dark period" in his life.

Tico and the Santis took up residence in Victor Lord Sr.'s secret manse, Lion's Heart Manor, located in Llanview's mystical and heretofore unknown Lenape Forest. All this crap first surfaced in the ridiculous climax to the Mitch Laurence storyline in 2003, when the Arthurian parallels went wild as Antonio got lost in the forest's hallucinatory fog, and saw a lady in the lake. Who was a vision of Keri Reynolds. Or something. I dunno.

I always wanted Lion's Heart to turn up again, but in the end Victor Lord Jr. made his own rapehouse, too.

Oh my God, it's Gregorzick! I remember him from the Datalounge.

Also, this happened.

No, you're not.

I've seen a bit of Troy Nichols. All I remember is he had a bizarre voice and just seemed weird to me.

There was an article I saw a while back from '91 or '92 about how OLTL was "exploring the strata of black culture" or whatever with Sheila caught between two very different men. Well, it sounded interesting.