Khan

Frankly, that's like giving credit to a father for paying child support. I'm not gonna pat people on their heads for doing what they're supposed to do.

Exactly. Those idiots are never going to vote for her, no matter what. They can pretend to be "undecided" all they want, but again, people are starting to catch on. Of COURSE they didn't fact-check her, because she actually had facts and logic on her side. All Trump has is what he heard Floyd the Barber discuss with Andy, Barney and Gomer Pyle at his barber shop.

That's true. But I'm also seeing more and more people in this country realizing that the establishment/mainstream media is hopelessly corrupt and therefore not to be trusted. That's why the MSM are so pissy right now: they've hit at Harris and Walz many times, and so far, nothing's landed, because people are slowly and gradually catching on.

I agree - and believe me, I've argued that exact point with her many times. But my mom is one of those if-it's-on-the-Internet-then-it-must-be-true types. You can't win with people like that, no matter how hard you try.

Honestly, those are the kind of folks who'd have trouble ordering from McDonald's. [!@#$%^&*] 'em.

Frankly, I had every confidence that Kamala Harris would emerge victorious in last night's debate. If I've learned anything from being around Black women all my life, it's that they know their [!@#$%^&*] and dare you to come for them. And even if it were true that immigrants are eating pets - AND IT IS NOT TRUE - what does that say about this country and our ability to feed every individual who lives here?

I hear that all the time even from my own mother, who has been brainwashed by propaganda videos on YouTube (a.k.a. the bane of my existence). How was your life better when Trump was president, I ask? We were almost wiped out by an epidemic, for God's sake! Typically, low-information voters say things like, "Gas and groceries were so much cheaper before Biden took office," without understanding that it's not the president who controls such matters but the CEOs and multi-billionaires whom their guy (Trump) helped out tremendously with his tax cuts. It's the same thing with Barack Obama. They accuse him of doing nothing during his administration except issue executive orders, not realizing that Congress forced his hand by being obstructionist in every way.

As they say on Election Night, "I've seen enough."

I don't think so, and I think any attempts to say he did - even with Melissa - is reaching. Frankly, I thought Lance and Melissa were too narcissistic to love anyone other than themselves. And poor Cole had to be the stupidest guy alive even to fall for her, too.

With some exceptions, "West Coast hires" can give you the extreme closeups, while "East Coast hires" can give you the pure, theatrical energy. It's not a knock on either group, however. It's just two different approaches toward the material.

I agree. Even losing the number-one slot to DYNASTY should have made Lorimar and CBS start thinking of some sort of exit strategy, because once a juggernaut like DALLAS loses its' position as the most-watched show on TV - not just on CBS, but on all of TV - it never reaches those heights again.

Remember, too, that he had a pretty good shot at becoming a regular on "Cheers" as Eddie LeBec until he badmouthed Rhea Perlman on the radio. He also was a regular during the second season of "Mork & Mindy," a season when both a timeslot change and cast overhaul caused M&M to drop out of the Nielsen Top 20 after finishing its' first season at #3, behind "Laverne & Shirley" and "Three's Company." Personally, I think KL missed a golden opportunity to go sorta meta and have Val develop "Capricorn Crude" into the kind of trashy miniseries that was really popular at that time. Imagine, for example, Val collaborating with the hack screenwriter who's been hired to co-write the teleplay and who wants (on orders from the producers or network) to make the miniseries even more salacious than the book; or the young, Pia Zadora-esque strumpet (maybe played by Kelli Maroney) who "shadows" Val in an attempt to portray her as accurately as possible.

Of course, there was a lot of junk airing on all three networks back then, but looking at that schedule, I'd say CBS's lineup probably was the least embarrassing, followed by NBC's. CBS, of course, was still giving its' mostly older, mostly conservative viewership what it wanted; while NBC was laying the final pieces of what would become the biggest night in TV (Thursdays); but ABC still appeared to be operating under the Fred Silverman mindset of giving audiences the least objectionable programming, regardless of quality. But that, too, would change a little bit in the latter half of the season, with the premiere of "Moonlighting," the first series on ABC - before "thirtysomething," "The Wonder Years" and "China Beach" - that could go toe-to-toe with NBC's more quality shows ("Hill Street Blues," "St. Elsewhere," etc). In retrospect, it probably hurt CBS not to have a prestigious, quality drama or comedy on their lineup at that time like the other two networks had. Their highest-rated show was MSW, which audiences loved from the start, but didn't exactly wow Madison Avenue or the critics.

In his own Archive of American Television interview, co-creator William Link suggests that Jean Stapleton was still mourning the recent loss of her husband, Bill Putch, and therefore wasn't up to taking on the lead in a new series. In any event, once she passed on the role, Link, Richard Levinson and Peter S. Fischer heard that Angela Lansbury was interested in working in television. Levinson and Link were fans of her stage work, but because she wasn't as well-known at the time in TV, they were afraid CBS's then-president Harvey Shepherd would pass on putting out feelers to her agent. Instead, Link says, Shepherd loved the idea and gave the three his blessing to reach out to her and see if she were interested. I agree. For sure, by the start of S2, the classic characterization of J.B. Fletcher as an everywoman was firmly in place. The humor in the stories, therefore, pivoted to the guest stars and recurring characters, with J.B. as the center of calm in the middle of all the mayhem. Such was the formula that MSW used for most of its' "golden age," through the 1990-91 season. Once Peter S. Fischer departed in 1991, and especially after Lansbury assumed control a year later, a lot of the folksy, quirky humor evaporated, with everyone (besides William Windom/Seth and occasionally Ron Masak/Mort) playing it straight like Lansbury. Unfortunately, this was also the period when the mysteries themselves became less challenging, so that, by 1994 or so, if you're still watching MSW, it's strictly for Lansbury. Same here. I'd watch the show occasionally with my mom, who is a big crime/mystery buff, but I wasn't a true fan until 2012, when Mama Khan and I would binge-watch it on Netflix as a way of getting our minds off my dad's unexpected passing. That's when I truly understood why millions around the world love it (and her) to this day.

I agree. It's not impossible for TV audiences to accept an actor as a new character after watching them for so long as another character, but it takes a lot of effort and a willingness on the actor's part to play against type. Betty White, for instance, went from playing the "happy homewrecker," Sue Ann Nivens, on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," to playing the resident dimwit, Rose Nylund, on "The Golden Girls," with a brief stopover as snobbish Ellen Harper Jackson on "Mama's Family" in between. But for the few Betty Whites in TV land who could transition like that, there were and are other actors who either kept playing variations of the same character, or who tried and tried and tried to shake off their most popular roles on TV and never could.

Say what you will about Maura West, but I've always appreciated the fact that she never phones in her performances. Same goes for her current GH castmates, Jane Elliot, Cynthia Watros and Laura Wright. Even when the writing for that foursome is [!@#$%^&*], they show up to work.

Or Barbara Eden.

Oh, FFS, folks, just let her go.

And I loved watching ANY show that was about adults, because most of the youth-oriented shows that were on at the time just seemed so stupid to me. KL ended the summer before I started high school; yet, I probably was its' youngest, biggest fan, lol!

Yep, it's that time again:

LOL!! I didn't mind Kenny's being involved in the music industry - although, given Richard's crack about him and Ginger getting married on an incoming wave, you'd think Kenny would've been a former professional surfer or something - but I would've explained that Kenny and Ginger were once in a rock band - he was the lead guitarist and songwriter; she was the "girl singer" - but when the hits dried up, so to speak, they moved to the suburbs, he transitioned to producing, while she became an elementary school music teacher. That way, Ginger's sudden desire to be a professional singer (again) in S4 would make more sense. Of course, this is from a (bad) half-hour comedy and not a drama series, but this is pretty much how I would've set up KL at the beginning: Couple #1: Young newlyweds. Couple #2: Couple in their late 30's/early 40's. Couple #3: Older, retired couple. (Just please ignore the cheesy theme song, lol).

Indeed - and yet, I think it's just as popular today, in this stream-verse that we live in, as it ever was. In fact, I think the case could be made that it's MORE popular today than it was when it first aired, on account of people who probably were too young to have watched it back then, but who have embraced it nevertheless, without any of the stigmas that were attached to it BITD. ICAM with everything here. At least NBC recognized right away that viewers of all ages loved "The Golden Girls" and capitalized on it by spinning off "Empty Nest." But CBS just assumed that only "old people" watched MSW, which probably explains why their one spinoff, the very good "The Law and Harry McGraw," got treated so badly that it almost made Peter S. Fischer quit.

The way I've heard even Angela Lansbury herself tell it, hardly anyone outside of Broadway (or old Hollywood) knew who she was before MSW. Of course, I think she was being her usual, modest self. (British actors, I find, tend to be modest and self-deprecating, lol). But, yeah, I do think expectations were somewhat guarded at the start. At best, CBS hoped MSW would retain enough of "60 Minutes"'s audience to help them win Sunday nights. They certainly never expected it to be the one show that kept the network afloat across two decades! What CBS failed to take fully into account, however, is one, very basic philosophy: that television, as a medium, thrives on intimacy and authenticity. The more "real" and welcoming an actor on a TV series comes across, the more the audience will be drawn to them. Viewers took to J.B. Fletcher, and to Angela Lansbury, because she represented to them (and still represents to them) the relative or neighbor they either knew or wish they did. At the same time, MSW, along with the OTHER surprise hit of the '80's, NBC's "The Golden Girls," helped lay waste to the ridiculous notion that women of a certain age were nothing more than doddering grandmas who sat at home all day, draped in afghans and drooling and wetting themselves on the regular. J.B. Fletcher proved to a lot of folks out there that the second half of one's life can be just as adventurous as the first - a sort of ambassadorship that Lansbury herself clearly took very seriously.

That would make sense, @Soaplovers. I'd love to know, though, who the fourth couple was before they were replaced with Gary and Val. What kind of characters were they? Were they newlyweds, like the Ewings and the Wards? Were they an older couple, like the Averys and the Fairgates? LOL!! I suspect that as well. I think Filerman/Jacobs realized early on that things weren't clicking with Kenny and Ginger, or with James Houghton and Kim Lankford, but Jacobs just wasn't ready to let go of his original vision for the show yet. If I could sum up David Jacobs' relationship with this show at least through the first four seasons, it'd be like this: S1: "It's 'Scenes from a Marriage' times four. It's gonna be a hit, I can feel it!" S2: "No, really, trust me on this - once we get the bugs worked out, it'll take off!" S3: "Okay, maybe I didn't think this 'Scenes from a Marriage x 4' concept through enough. Just give us a lil' more time and we'll have it!" S4: "[!@#$%^&*] it, let's just play Soap Opera!"

Yes, she will! Angela Lansbury SAVED CBS in the '80's and '90's!