Vee

A couple older articles, both from Roseanne's POV which is unique and may need a grain of salt, but fascinating nonetheless - one from a few years ago and one from '89, both discussing the power struggle with co-creator (and future creator of Home Improvement, which I despised) Matt Williams in S1, as well as candidly discussing her personal life, her family and divorce from her first husband. Both very worth reading. A small excerpt of the latter: ...Oh, and there's also pretty gruesome detail on her then-new sex life with Tom Arnold.

Another funky legend I discovered which may or may not be untrue: John Goodman was widely rumored to be at the end of his rope in Season 8 and ready for the show to be done. And it's known that much of the cast thought it was their last, as did Lecy Goranson which is why she agreed to return, only for Roseanne to agree to one more year. As such, Goodman took off for other commitments like The Big Lebowski for much of the season. The new part of this story, which may or may not be true, claims that Goodman's last regular appearance was to be the Season 8 finale, where he and Roseanne have their huge fight. Originally, the story goes, Dan would only appear once more to be killed off. TPTB supposedly managed to convince him to make recurring appearances in Season 9, but the affair story + death in the finale clearly seems punitive on Roseanne's part. I always was disgusted by his treatment in the story that year and while neither behaved perfectly BTS (Goodman was a longtime alcoholic) I am glad those two patched it up.

A couple surprisingly mostly positive reviews: THR and Chicago Tribune It does sound like the election issue is handled broadly but that the show moves on after the pilot, for which I am glad. I didn't know the premiere night next week is a full hour - two episodes.

I wouldn't even be shocked if George Clooney turned up to cameo again like he did during the original for a Halloween ep. I doubt it, but it's possible. He came back to ER twice. He likes doing that kind of stuff, he's a class act. I liked Seasons 5 and most of 6 quite a lot, and after that the show began to have real trouble though it wasn't unwatchable to me til the final year. But I did think the decreased presence of Roseanne and Dan's other friends from the old days hurt. (I'm pretty sure Natalie West is also confirmed)

I remember reading somewhere that the wife is serving in Afghanistan, but I dunno if that's correct. I hope Becky's life improves a bit since we know she is still working in the service industry - I get that it's realistic, but I always held out hope that at least one of the kids would get out from under as planned, and Becky had the rockiest road of it due to her rash choices. I just rewatched the Season 5 two-parter where she leaves and Roseanne tries to hope for the best, that Becky will finish HS (which I think she does) and then go to a local college. I can't remember if she ever did when they moved back; I don't think so. And that rang true then, but I always hoped she'd eventually get back on track. We know Darlene and her children move back home in the new series due to hard times (I think Darlene lost her job), but I hope it hasn't been nothing but misery for her either, as she was the big hope later on.

I wouldn't be surprised if Leon shows up, though they have yet to announce him. But as much as I loved Martin Mull I thought Leon became just such a cartoon by the end that I'm much more happy Crystal, Chuck and Anne-Marie are back - to me those are the characters from the greatest years that deserved a bit more attention. Natalie West's comic timing and deadpan was especially underrated.

I remember this: I cannot remember what happened to Bonnie on the show - I know they all got fired from the mall, but I thought she and Roseanne had a falling-out (onscreen) and I don't know if they patched it up. Allegedly it was unscripted - they had supposedly planned to use another song then found out they couldn't, so did this one at the last moment. The cast's reactions are apparently genuine.

I grew up in MD/DC and did a double take at the news this morning as well. Take care.

I just remembered how every time Dimitri and Edmund got mad at each other Dimitri would start running around shouting "STABLE BOY!!!" God, that used to crack me up. What cheese. Goodnight, everybody!

One of the show's saner decisions of late, IMO

Most of those clips are pretty good. The bit with Dan and Darlene about health insurance and Dan and Mark ("that's drywall, son") are old school.

Mr. Stamos had been a strong advocate inside the company for investigating and disclosing Russian activity on Facebook, often to the consternation of other top executives, including Sheryl Sandberg, the social network’s chief operating officer, according to the current and former employees, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. After his day-to-day responsibilities were reassigned to others in December, Mr. Stamos said he would leave the company. He was persuaded to stay through August to oversee the transition of his duties because executives thought his departure would look bad, the current and former employees said. He has been overseeing the transfer of his security team to Facebook’s product and infrastructure divisions. His group, which once had 120 people, now has three, the current and former employees said. Mr. Stamos would be the first high-ranking employee to leave Facebook since controversy erupted over disinformation on its site. His departure is a sign of heightened leadership tensions at the company. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, Ms. Sandberg and other company leaders have struggled to address a growing set of problems, including Russian interference on the platform, the rise of false news, and the disclosure this past weekend that 50 million of its user profiles had been harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling company that worked on President Trump’s election campaign. Facebook did not immediately have a comment.

What a mess.

Agnes ultimately lost control of McTavish, IIRC. She, Francesca James, etc. tried to steer MMT more in her first run.

The UK's Channel 4's Cambridge Analytica doc (now trending) - and the NY Times story posted upthread - have led to some more shocking revelations about and consequences for Facebook:

I really hope so.

He's having a rough Monday. This was posted with no other accompaniment:

Wow, Drake. Happy for them both.

Uhhhhhh...... agree to disagree.

I actually don't think most of the media is enabling him much anymore; I think they're as terrified of him as we are. I do think a lot of them always disdain too many Democrats. And Bill Maher is just a joke - he always hates Democrats. The media is not trying to draw attention from Trump - most of them know he is a clear and present danger and report on it, many very well. But their repertoire and perspective is very limited by conventional norms, and their very real fear of this new and unthinkable situation is also a huge influencer on their coverage - any time they can try to bring things back to comfortable scenarios like 'both sides do it' or 'just Beltway politics as usual,' many of them do, because the alternative is abject horror at what has been wrought. In a way, trying to find false equivalencies or ways to needle Democrats as well as Trump is the mainstream media's security blanket in the face of Trump. That said: Some of them are doing very good work.

He can't fire Mueller - he has to get Sessions or Rosenstein to do that, and Sessions recused himself (much to Trump's rage) and Rosenstein won't do it. He may try to dump Sessions and replace him with Pruitt (who would in turn dump Rosenstein) who is already on staff and therefore, I believe, does not need to be confirmed by Congress. Anyone else would have to be and would not make it through.

He has a very warped sense of his own behavior.

I've also been meaning to watch that.