Vee

Very happy to see Laura Harrier headlining the film, which was great. Also saw a trailer for Nobody's Fool with Tika Sumpter (Layla, OLTL) and Tiffany Haddish. The great David Selby (Quentin, Dark Shadows) had a guest bit in last week's Castle Rock. He's always so amazing - was one of my first choices to play a resurrected Tony Lord in the ol' "if I ran OLTL" thought game.

I found Marty West's rear nudity and his homoerotic oil wrestling side career (where John Conboy likely 'discovered' him) to be the most endearing things about him. The actor he replaced was talented - oddly enough, that guy went on to do a well-received gay indie (L.I.E.) and then AFAIK never be seen again.

That always baffled me - Phillip left the show deranged, a maniac, and they didn't ever deal with the ramifications of his craziness before his exit. He threw Grady off a cliff, the one concession to that side of him, and it was never dealt with.

What????

Sonequa Martin-Green and the Discovery cast with Stewart:

He's a marvel:

The 21st century needs Jean-Luc Picard more than ever.

Very happy, as the TNG cast never got an adequate sendoff. That being said, I hope Alex Kurtzman's involvement is in name only. He has his fingers in much of CBS' Trek pie at the moment, he can't write them all.

It's worth mentioning that the Stamford remotes for AMC and OLTL 2.0 on Hulu were the most part lovely and very well-shot. But they were also a very small portion of the run. Yep. And that never ended. What the excuse was for the rotting metal on Cassie's front lawn, I have no idea.

I remember it and my reaction was 'holy fúck.' IIRC they had been doing more and more bad remote stuff for awhile up to that point but the beginning of Peapack - woo. It was a brutal, ugly winter in an ugly-looking town, or a town GL made look ugly. Cassie's house had scrap metal outside and looked like a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Harley's house, I don't even know. They also kept filming with the same new cameras they used outside inside some of the actual old sets and soundstages - which made every actual set look like a McDonald's countertop. This was also, verbatim, one of my early impressions of GL, which I didn't first take notice of til the late '90s. Everyone was blonde and loud, the colors were too hot and it all looked too tacky and cheap. Paul Rauch. They did. And Kim has told the story of having to change in the back of a car on the side of the road. Her book has a number of great anecdotes about Peapack, as you've mentioned. I think she says that with the scene with Cole, they simply cut to a static shot of an American flag blowing in the breeze with him talking over it because they'd failed to properly shoot the actors. They would cover for bad footage with shots of local scenery - flags, flowers, etc. The shït where Wheeler's office and other studio facilities were doubling as onscreen locations was the nadir for me. Her office was the church! God knows what the hell that awful gas station store originally was. People would hang out in these incredibly drab, functional gray/white office spaces with fluorescent lighting that were clearly part of the studio. It was unbelievable. And that damn folk rock muzak would play under everything, to the point that you could sometimes not hear them. Remember when a Spaulding press conference or board meeting was held outside in a field with some metal folding chairs?

Tina had no actual personality traits beyond 'spunky.' She got by on a fun actress and little else. I have no clue what her backstory was and what happened to her. I'm sure I knew back then, but... In fairness, did he harass anyone or just sleep around on poor Eva? There is a distinction.

Finally watching Series 10. It's solid.

Robyn Griggs was certainly the Paul Rauch type.

I also really liked BMH as Joey. His initial re-introduction as a handsome mystery man in the first days of February '03 was brilliantly done and made Joey a presence again. Hall was very green but had real soul and pathos and even a bit of authority in his role as a curate and with his family, I felt. He clicked with Melissa, Bree, Erika and Dan Gauthier. It was sticking him in a truly horrible love triangle with Jessica Morris and Joey's cousin (Flash) that screwed him. I think Malone and Griffith had intended to use bringing Joey (and later Kevin, the cynical, calculating mini-tycoon, his counterpoint) and the girls all back to Viki at once as bringing the show's heart back. But so many of their stories were a disaster.

IIRC they tried to go the Scott DeFreitas/Brian Bloom approach with Chris McKenna at first, and tested him with Reiko Aylesworth's Rebecca in '93. I remember those scenes. They then clearly concluded he was too young and SORASed. He did look (and was) very young. The adult and very handsome McKenna would never have gotten on Brian Frons' (or Frank Valentini's) short list, even seven years ago - not a typical soap hunk, too old. Shortly thereafter I believe he turned up on Y&R and his look has always been very versatile, as I said earlier, between younger and older - but his type is just not what ABCD or Valentini's OLTL was remotely interested in.

Rudy's excellent on Twitter:

He seems to vary wildly between looking absolutely tore up with premature age and/or bloated, and getting it together. But he seems to be doing better career-wise. I dunno. He doesn't look as bad as he did a few years ago, that's for sure.

Speaking of Jesse McCartney, last time I saw him he'd aged like milk. Transitory boyband fame had left him looking rough on Fear the Walking Dead - like, he could've feasibly taken the JR role back from Jacob Young. Hope he's doing better.