Franko

Yup, in spite of it all, the cast more or less makes it work. (I'll also admit to being a performances over composition kind of audience member.)

I'm just looking forward to eventually getting to see the arrivals of Luna, Andrew and especially Blair (I think I got the order right).

1 minute ago, Vee said:

Plenty helpful, thanks. I'm just wading through some of this wretched last of Rauch's writing team stuff.

And it is BLOATED!

7 minutes ago, Vee said:

I am wading through the back half of July '91 and woof it's a lot. Anyone know when a) Loon Lake starts and b) when Malone's first credited day might be?

Loon Lake begins July 23. Until proven otherwise, I'm considering August 5 to be Malone's first credited day. (Sorry, I know that doesn't help much.)

2 hours ago, Xanthe said:

A handsome young pimp learned to pity
When his sister was quite ill (though pretty)
His anguish seemed hollow
But macho Chad Rollo
Stopped trafficking girls in Bay City

  

Ooh! Ooh! Do Alma Rudder next!

We're getting close to the 40th anniversary. Speaking of "The Murder of Sherlock Holmes," I've headcanoned it that Jessica made many of her future longtime friends (at least the ones that weren't likely to have lived in Cabot Cove) at that costume party she attended. Granted, this means that she would have spent the entire party being introduced to people.

58 minutes ago, John said:

Billy doesnt show up until Spring 1992

Oh, I figured we wouldn't see him yet, there'd just be a line or two as foreshadowing.

I might be reading too much into this, but using "The Promise of a New Day" for the underscoring of Jason's first scene has to be intentional, right? (Also, I was hoping that we'd get a Billy Douglas shoutout when Viki called the boys' friends.)

I can't decide if the Kevin & Stephanie story is endearingly insane or too, too precious.

Thank you for the answers and insight, @Vee and @DRW50.

I have a question about when Jessica was molested. Was it supposed to be during her elementary school years or as a teenager? That plot element was weighing on my mind while watching Viki comfort young Jessica after Loon Lake.

1 hour ago, DaytimeFan said:

The first was a sitcom from Norman Lear. 

By any chance, was that P.O.P.? NBC aired that pilot in 1984. It starred Charles Durning as a con artist reuniting with his ex-wife, played by -- wait for it -- Bea Arthur.

If Knots still wanted to acknowledge Dallas in 1989, then Sue Ellen's revenge movie about J.R. should have been a revenge TV movie airing on Pacific World Cable.

In the episode "The Verdict," it's suggested that J.R. and aging call girl Lila (Barbara Rhodes) did have a child, young call girl Rhonda (Michelle Johnson). But then it's undercut by Rhonda laughing about how she's not really Lila's mother.

8 hours ago, Chris B said:

You aren't too far off on Kenny. From what David Jacobs suggested, they had bigger plans for the Ward's, but the network vetoed it.

 

 

Well, I certainly didn't expect Kenny to pimp his own wife.

26 minutes ago, Khan said:

I agree!  KL got a lot of story from Val's book, but it really didn't make sense for J.R. to be so concerned about it.  Then again, as I've mentioned before, I've never understood how KL came to the idea of making Val a writer in the first place.  At the very least, I see her writing books for children and young adults, since she loved babies so much.  But writing what amounted to be a potboiler in the same fashion as Jacqueline Susann just didn't work for me.

I swear I'm not meaning to reply *only* to your posts, Khan ...

The impression I got was that J.R. was trying to mess with Val's head when he implied that Miss Ellie, etc. would be so scandalized or hurt by Capricorn Crude. It didn't work, so he moved onto making money off the whole affair.

I'll always love J.R. shading Val in that one scene, complimenting her on her "way with ice tea."

As for Val being Seaview Circle's answer to Susann, Krantz and Collins, even if the show didn't intend it, I always think in terms of Grace Metalious. She had aspirations of being a serious writer, but no one saw Peyton Place that way.

6 hours ago, Khan said:

Kenny and Ginger felt superfluous to me even during the Ciji Dunne storyline, and that one was centered around the music industry, lol!

But seriously.  The producers made the same mistake with the Wards that countless other producers and writers on soaps have made with pairings that aren't interesting: they saddled Kenny and Ginger with a kid, as if a baby would generate story for them.  (Guess what?  It never does).

Frankly, I would've killed off little Erin Molly ASAP, had Ginger suffer a total breakdown and end up in an institution, and the last thing you would've heard about Kenny was that he was living out of his van and he had taken up with an 18-year-old, lol!

Bobby Ewing and Richard Avery each had their time as the company pimp. Maybe it would have worked better for Kenny? Suppose he was a producer in name only, with his real contributions being sex and drugs.

39 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

 

Oh, my good lord ... Stuart Damon was genuinely talented, but this is the sort of stuff that Bill Murray would parody on SNL a few years later.

I originally thought it was Joe Allen's in New York, but I'm remembering a different photo.

5 hours ago, SoapDope said:

Maybe Gary prostituted himself for money to buy booze ? Like Midnight Cowboy.

And maybe this is revealed when Gary runs for office?

On 8/29/2024 at 3:16 PM, chrisml said:

NBC probably did interfere once it became an emmy-winning show.

20 hours ago, Chris 2 said:

Sela Ward won an acting Emmy, but I don’t think I’d call Sisters an “Emmy winning show”. The show itself never won an award, like for drama series or writing. Swoosie Kurtz was nominated once or twice, and I think it got nominated for hair or costume design.

If one of the cast members getting an acting award makes something an Emmy winning show, then Dallas and the Bionic Woman are Emmy winning shows too. And Coach!

The time between L.A. Law's Emmy dominance and ER's is an interesting one. The title of NBC's flagship drama was up for grabs, and Sisters had just as much chance of nabbing it as Law & Order, I'll Fly Away, and Homicide: Life on the Street. (Even Quantum Leap had some high profile nominations.)

9 minutes ago, Vee said:

Abby with Ray Krebbs?? Yikes. (And I like Ray)

That's right. I feel like he'd be more of a pushover for her, which I could see her liking (for a while, at least).

The real winner in the hypothetical Gary-Donna relationship is, of course, Miss Ellie.

17 minutes ago, Vee said:

I think it's a real shame J.R. never returned after S4 (or Abby never went with Gary to Dallas).

This is the perfect way for me to drop onto the table a what if that's been nagging me lately. Would Abby and Donna been better off if they swapped Ewing brothers?

In preparation for the Rauch-Gottlieb changeover, I went back and looked at our threads on this topic. The article mentioning Linda's casting of unique looking character actors like Paul Bartel and Wallace Shawn rushed back to me when watching Penn Jillette orchestrate Tina's makeover.

Browsing a used bookstore today, I found -- for 50 cents, no less -- Inside, Looking Out.

10 minutes ago, Khan said:

I think "Blairly Legal"* had some potential as well.  I'm not sure about the "working with the former professor" angle, but I definitely see young Blair, fresh out of law school, now working at an upscale Manhattan firm. 

There, you'd have the fatherly senior partner, who co-founded the firm (the other partner passed away) and who has handled all her parents' divorces; two other associates at the firm - one male, one female - who jockey constantly for position, and who engage in a Tracy/Hepburn-esque battle of wits; maybe a receptionist, who is a single mom from Queens and possesses an anti-elitist attitude; and a mail clerk, whose mission in life is to get rich quick and retire early (preferably, on an island surrounded by scantily-clad women who don't know the English language).

And then, just to round things off, you have Blair, in the first episode, taking in an old childhood friend, who is filthy rich, but who must learn to be independent after leaving her longtime fiancee at the altar.  (Yes, years before Rachel Green on "Friends.").

Blair's parents would've made occasional appearances throughout each season, since both lived in NYC.  However, I would've been very careful not to have the other "girls" on FOL appear right away - maybe, one per season, like how "Frasier" handled all the reunions with Kelsey Grammer's former "Cheers" co-stars - as the spinoff would need to be able to stand on its' own.

(*Yes, I'm calling it that.  Shut up, lol).

We've got an ensemble of six for Blairly Legal, three men and three women. Any casting ideas?