Khan

Perhaps. OTOH, even Irna Phillips might have had difficulties writing for many of PASSIONS' so-called actors.

NBCU/Comcast is probably still paying off Reilly (or his estate) for his last contract with the network.

Agree. When it became clear no one was taking the show seriously, that's when everyone started touting PASSIONS as a parody of soaps rather than as a soap itself. Unfortunately... No. It didn't work as a parody, or as anything else. The writing wasn't good enough, and the acting wasn't good enough either. PASSIONS was just a bad, bad show.

Yes. There's only one man on daytime who STILL could make my toes curl, and that's Philip Brown (ex-Buck, LOVING/THE CITY; ex-Brian, KNOTS; ex-Neil, THE COLBYS; ex-Steve, SFT; et al). I saw him again recently on a commercial and...uh huh.... I read that, too. God bless Bev, but I don't think that would have worked. Chris Bernau always found the humanity within that character. He could make me care about Alan even when Alan was behaving abominably toward others. I think Daniel Davis' interpretation would have been too smarmy and Snidely Whiplash-esque, much like Ron Raines' version became. OTOH, I wouldn't have minded DD putting in a short-term appearance as Eric Luvonaczek (sp?). I think he could have played the struggling (musical) artist/sniveling heel very well.

Agree. Marland dragged out the Joan Dancy and Carolee/Steve/Ann storylines for so long that they lost all momentum, thereby ensuring that neither ended excitingly. (Plus, I think he was so bored with that story in particular that he just stopped writing it.) Add in some very lackluster performances and you have a very unpleasant experience for this avowed Marland fan. I hate making excuses for any writer, but I wonder whether Marland was trying to adhere to TD's established style of slow-moving storylines and learned (the hard way) that that style was not the kind of writing he did best.

Isn't that how Trump always works? Like I said upthread, Trump never admits defeat on anything, even when it's painfully clear that that's what it is.

Yep. I'll bet if John Robinson were still alive, he'd be just as shocked as everyone else how eerily prescient his episode of "Trackdown" has become.

Pelosi is playing Trump's game, making shady digs at the fact that everything Trump has came from his dad. Right on, girl. IOW, Cohen has not a thing to lose.

When I was in school, it seemed like every African-American girl was named Erica.

But seriously. Schumer was correct to say that Trump is using us as leverage for his stupid wall -- and we aren't off-the-mark for comparing the moment to a soap opera, because that's exactly how Trump sees all this. In his mind, Pelosi and Schumer are the Jeremy Wendell to his J.R. Ewing; and he's just raising the stakes before the shocking end-of-season cliffhanger (where Southfork -- er, I mean, the United States -- will burn to the ground). It will never sink into that man's head that this is not DAYS, and that the President of the United States cannot use ordinary citizens as chess pieces against one party or another. Not when the livelihoods of men and women are at stake -- a far greater risk to our security, IMO, than some perceived terrorists and drug-dealing thugs we THINK are crossing illegally over our borders. We are not pawns; we are flesh-and-blood human beings; and many who work for our government stand to lose incomes, careers, houses and everything else to a madman who sees a damn wall (or fence, or barrier, or glorified child-safety gate) as being more valuable than citizens to whom he is most certainly accountable. If you continue to support and defend this man after this debacle, then you aren't just dumb. You're as unhinged as he is.

Who are we kidding? There's only one theme that fits the exchange between Trump and Schumer:

Translation: "If I give up on the wall, I'll look like a loser -- and I'm not a loser, Daddy, I'm not!" No matter how Trump and/or his PR folks will spin it, the fact that Pelosi and Schumer's message drew higher ratings than his will be what hurts him personally most of all. I love it.

I'm still upset over the fact that the networks gave Trump what they had denied Obama when he was still in office. It doesn't surprise me, of course, but it just galls the hell out of me how so many people today feel so free to be so openly racist. Thank God I've pretty much stopped watching television, save for Hallmark Channel's annual slate of Christmas movies (and after the pro-Trump messages they snuck into last year's crop, they're on thin ice with me as well). Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Bill Shine all need to take a good, hard look at the man they work for and realize that the traditional methods of getting their messages across to Americans (and others) aren't going to work. Trump is incapable of appealing to anyone outside of Fox News' target demographic or the numbskulls who attend his rallies. Last night's performance apparently proved as much. Like I had suggested upthread, I think Trump should go ahead at this point, declare a national emergency and try to get the wall built. Of course, the courts will slow down (if not stop altogether) his efforts, meaning there's a good chance he'll be gone from office before they even break ground on the cursed thing -- but who cares? At the very least, it'll free up both sides to try and work on some compromise that would end the current showdown. In fact, that's pretty much how I would handle Trump from now on: distract him, keep him busy on wild goose chases (such as convincing the courts to let him have his damn wall), while the more competent types run the country (into the ground).

Good for her. She's learning fast.

Nothing, not even the president of the United States, will keep me from my "Law & Order" binge-a-thons on WEtv.

IOW, Trump was just being Trump, lol.

Trump doesn't care. He wants his wall. He'll do anything to get his wall. But, like you said, Wendy, even if he does declare a national emergency, it'll be tied up for years in court. It won't be a total victory, but it'll be something. Sometimes, I think they let him have moments like this 1) because they know the man is a narcissist and they know this is the best way to deal with a narcissist, and 2) they get a big kick out of watching him behave even more like a buffoon.

Agree. Same. And if I have to watch, then I'm doing it "Bird Box"-style, with my eyes blindfolded.

Same. First of all, it wasn't as if she was nude in the video, or straddling a pole (or some dude). AOC was clothed the entire time, with none of her "lady parts" showing. Second, it was done before she entered the political scene, but unlike with, say, Brett Kavanaugh, AOC's dancing was a consensual act; and no one had been violated sexually in the making of said video. And third, if we were to tisk-tisk her for dancing so provocatively, then we'd have to do the same to Ally Sheedy and even John Hughes, since it was "The Breakfast Club," and Sheedy's dance moves in particular, that AOC was paying homage to.

I still believe all that was Gail Kobe's, rather than Pam Long's, doing.

Which is why I love Pelosi for the moment. For once, someone in D.C. stood up to Trump like the bully he is -- not just to the media, but literally to his face -- and said, "No."

Five more years of this [!@#$%^&*]. I don't think I can take it. So, thank God for Hallmark movies? I called it. (Well, I ALMOST called it. I said he'd turn up on "Dancing with the Stars." But, hey, the year's still young.)

Yep. Just as I had figured. SMDH.

Yep. Poor Jada Rowland. It's probably shitty material like this that drove her out of the business. Meanwhile, the actors' faces in TD's first-ever opening sequence give me all kinds of life... James Pritchett: Constipated. (Much like many of his performances as Dr. Matt Powers, TBH.) Lydia Bruce: Petrified. Elizabeth Hubbard: Removed. ("Another few months, darling, and I'm off this sinking ship.") David O'Brien: Concerned. Jada Rowland: Resigned. ("Ugh, I'm on another soap that's going down the crapper.") She isn't alone.